IMDb #228 Review: La Haine (1995)

Source: Wikipedia

Initial impressions tend to set the tone of a film, like smashing a champagne bottle on the hull of a new ship. But sometimes the glass lacerates your poor clumsy hand and the alcohol seeps into your wounds and while everybody’s clapping and cheering, you’re screaming your head off.

In English, La Haine means “Hate.” As in, “Hate breeds hate.”

This film starts off with the broken bottle at your throat and doesn’t let up. How does it begin?

• As a black-and-white French movie from 1995.
• Grainy riot footage interspersed with opening credits in New Courier font.
• A dedication “to friends and family who died while it was in the making." Holy crap.

Put 'em together, and what have we got? A grim urban funk-fest not even Bob Marley’s “Burnin and Lootin” can dispel.

With the plain horror of an expository documentary, we sample a slice of nineteen hours in the lives of three angry young men from the Parisian ghettos (banlieues). And what a harrowing slice. Stark depictions of crime, drugs, guns, poverty, boredom, and manly flexing in front of bathroom mirrors.

The three friends -- a Jew, an Arab, and a black guy -- sound like the setup to a bad joke, which they are, courtesy of the cruel universe.

These guys bum around from crash pad to rooftop party to crime scene. Their neighborhood crackles with tension, since a recent riot put a buddy in the hospital. Worse, if their buddy dies, cops are gonna die. An officer’s revolver has disappeared, and reappears in a main characters itchy, twitchy trigger fingers.

Prejudice, brutality, and obscenities proliferate on all sides of the law. Tempers flare, tensions surge to violent climax.

And just when you think you’re done -- so far, so good -- the ending busts you in the jaw.

Not exactly propaganda from the Parisian tourist department.

98 minutes.