La Haine is a purposely made black and white crime, drama film created in 1995 film Directed and Written by Mathieu Kassovitz. It had a budget of €2.5 million.
The film deals with many different themes as it is set over a period of 24 hours and follows 3 main protagonists after a riot within France. Its main themes are poverty, minority groups, racism, violence, respect and power.
Throughout the whole film, there are moments of a black screen with the time on it. this shows the audience that the time frame the film takes place in is a whole 24 hour cycle.
La Haine was actually filmed in colour, but was edited to black and white when in the post production stages of the film. This was because the director thought it would not do as well if it was released in colour. The black and white effect creates the atmosphere of social realism as the audience can focus on the issues that the film gets across, instead of them focusing on the vibrancy and beautiful aspects that France has to offer.
Starting with power, the characters live in an estate, that is looked down upon and no respected by anyone outside of it, so they believe that violence is one of the best ways to gain the respect they want.
Vinz has no respect for the police and people with authority. He is lead by hate and is obsessed with gaining a higher status than his other friends. This is why he has a gun and has it with him a lot, to give him status and power. The cinematography for this film shows who has power within each scene. Throughout the film, the status of authority goes in the order of Hubert, Vinz, then Said. This is shown through the cinematography, by the character who has the most authority in the scene, having more height in the shot or being closer to the camera. An example of this is a scene when the three characters are sitting on some concrete blocks, and Hubert is closest to the camera, then Vinz is behind him, and Said behind Vinz. This then changed when Vinz had an idea of what to do, when the camer moved from Hubert to a close up of Vinz.
The framing of shots was very important to the director. He uses it to show authority and the importance of specific items, such as the gun, and when it is in a scene, it is the centre of the frame, and all of the characters and scene is set around it, showing how important it is to the characters.
The police are represented in a bad way during the film, but may be accurate for the time and place where it was set. They are seen as agressive in many of the scenes. Within the last scene Vinz is accidentally shot by the police officer. This shows the audience how stupid and careless the police can be. They may have thought the characters from the estate are a lower class, therefore do not matter as much as them.
French films usually show Paris from a very different point of view. Paris is usually seen with all its landmarks, looking very posh and beautiful just like a postcard. But in this film it is seen from a ‘normal' point of view, from the eye of the people that live there. When the protagonists travel to Paris, all we see is the Eiffel Tower from a long distance. One of them even tries to click his fingers to switch off the lights but is told that it ‘only works in the movies’. Even though this is a movie, it doesn't work, which suggests how this film represents real life.
