Synopsis

Set in a French suburb, La Haine is a radical departure from the Paris we see in glossy travel magazines or in movies like Amélie. La Haine follows three restless young men in the 24 hours after a violent riot in an ethnically-diverse housing project. Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui), an Arab, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), a white, non-practicing Jew, and Hubert (Hubert Koundé), an African boxer, are men of France’s marginalized underclass. A boiling pot of a film with bouts of explosive intensity, La Haine puts a face to the immigrant population and lays bare their resentment towards a racist, oppressive police force.

Mathieu Kassovitz injects the film with a rebellious boldness and intensity that translates across every scene. The narrative is based on the real-life 1993 murder of Makomé M’Bowole, a Zairian immigrant who was shot at point-blank range during an interrogation by a Parisian police officer. The story personally affected Kassovitz as he knew people in the ghettos where M’Bowole lived. To bring this injustice to light, Kassovitz created La Haine, a film considered by many to be a cornerstone of contemporary French cinema with its expressive camerawork and biting social commentary.

Movie Trailer