Within a twenty-hour period, the characters of La Haine battle a private and a collective disruption. As day becomes night, three men’s desire to resist police control is crushed. An important aspect of this descent is the use of time, as characters Vinz, Hubert, and Said journey from a Parisien banlieue to Paris. Director Mathieu Kassovitz employs strategic mise en scène to delineate between these realms.
The city, according to urban sociologist Robert Park is, “man’s most successful attempt to remake the world he lives in more after his heart’s desire. But, if the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is henceforth condemned to live.”[1] This analysis includes context of why Kassovitz’s representation of the city and suburb is effective for discussing urban transformation. Following that, an explanation of two rooftop scenes during the day, then at night, is included to describe strategies that support or hinder the men’s development. Lastly, these scenes will be used to describe the discrepancy between a city’s relationship to self and its relationship to the shifting “collective”.
Journey From Day to Night
After being repeatedly pushed out of public spaces in the Parisian banlieue, the characters travel for something beyond their estate’s condemnation. The trip’s motivation is described as monetary, but Vinz expresses delight in finding a place where the police do not know them by name. In Paris, the characters learn that the factors that hinder their ability to remain in shared space exist beyond the estate. The chaos that elicits police dominance and public disapproval follows them wherever they go, suggesting it may be a part of them. Like Park’s description of the city, the characters and their environment are reciprocal, even if also antagonistic.[2]
The set is based in a real place called La Noe, meaning “New Town” in Chateloup-les-Vignes, west of Paris.[3]This setting makes the audience feel greater stakes in the story, relating recent French news to the constructed plot. Kassovitz based the film on riots that took place in French suburbs. His intention was to draw awareness to the mistreatment of banlieue youth by police during a politically charged period, following the election of right-wing President Jacques Chirac.[4] The following strategies used by Kassovitz to tell the banlieue characters’ story were effective at instigating social discussion but were also highly criticized for aesthetic alignment with existing Hollywood cinema.[5]
Joe Hardwick describes Kassovitz’s ability to maintain “narrative authority”, convincing the audience of an insider’s perspective on the differences between banlieue and Parisien culture by tessellating between two narrative devices: critical distance and “loiterliness”.[6] The director maintains a sense of directionality throughout the film, by foreshadowing an impending tragedy. Simultaneously, the story digresses towards its ending, meandering onto rooftops to momentarily reassure viewers throughout the characters’ descent.
Two scenes take place on rooftops, initially above the estate in the afternoon, and then above Paris at night. Both rooftops are fruitful grounds for the analysis of city and character since they are platforms above and within each place. From rooftops, we may analyze whether the men from the estate have, by David Harvey’s definition “the right to the city”, meaning “the right to change ourselves by changing the city.”[7]
A Day in the Banlieue
In the day, the men venture to the roof of Hubert’s family building. The rooftop boundaries obstruct the viewer from seeing the streets, with only the tops of other buildings and hills in the distance visible. The setting is one of the most convincing social spaces in the estate. Fold-out chairs, old couches, and a makeshift barbeque momentarily convince the audience that the three main characters have a place to feel comfortable amongst peers.
As described by Stafford, the three men serve distinct roles to progress scenes such as this. Hubert, older than the other two, provides experience and wisdom to the best of his ability. Vinz is the main source of danger and violence. Said, whose movement generates the camera path in this scene, is said to be “our guide through the more mundane scenes”. [8] His youth and curiosity move the journey forward, but often towards arrest, such as at the conclusion of this rooftop gathering.
This scene confirms the trio’s unique attachment to the city in totality. Characters in the background are capable of reappropriating desolate or unexpected space as their own. The graffiti along the walls and the music playing out of speakers indicate these men harness the right to make the estate their space. Yet soon after Vinz, Hubert, and Said’s arrival, equilibrium is lost, and the streets are made visible. Looking down, the mayor stares up at the scene, soon followed by a swarm of uniformed and casual-clothed police officers busting into the party. The men’s presence is seen as an instigator of the gathering’s demise, and they are pushed out by a community member.
While the isolation of the estate could be the source of community niches, for people who like to cook food on a roof or dance in a subway, it instead serves to amplify the surveillance and discomfort of the trio. Later, resting on an abandoned play structure leaves the trio exposed to a reporter’s camera gaze. In the mouth of a hippopotamus slide, the three are filmed like zoo animals, incapable of controlling their surroundings or portrayal in media. While the boundaries of the roof maintain the anonymity of community members wishing to connect, the walls of the playground make a spectacle of the men.
The rooftop may appear even more tantalizing if Kassovitz had maintained the original use of colour stock, but decided in post-production that projecting the film in black and white would communicate the bleak aesthetic of the estate.[9] The scene was likely shot on a short-lensed, wide-angle camera, since this was Kassovitz’s intention for all the scenes shot in the banlieue. This strategy relays proximity between foreground and background, usually people and their surroundings. The wide-angle lens communicates the relation between the banlieue characters and the architecture, immersed in their context. The camera creates distortion when objects are especially near to the frame.[10] This phenomenon is evident in this scene during close-ups of Vinz and Hubert. As Said naively runs around the roof, stealing hot dogs like a kid, the duo is so integrated into the city context that their image is skewed. This difference may have been Kassovitz’s attempt to show Said’s unique hope for a ‘normal’ life, one independent from the estate limits.
Part of this scene shows Kassovitz’s interest in single-long shots. Although this is a style employed by filmmakers to indicate documentary-like realism, critics Tobin and Bourguignon believe that the film’s camerawork is more conducive to a “contemporary fairytale”.[11] While the camera pans around the roof, a helicopter noise is heard nearby. This inclusion foreshadows the upcoming police presence, indicating ongoing surveillance. Through sound, it also connects viewers to the most fantastical scene in the film, shot from above the banlieue.
Filmed using a remote-operated helicopter above the estate, the least human-scaled view of the buildings is constructed.[12] The technique illustrates a dream-like banlieue, worthy of music video footage. It also demonstrates the depth between the apartments and the pavement which the men often frequent. While this shot looks down at the space, the courtyard is also depicted from the ground upwards earlier in the film to demonstrate the panopticon-like effect of the neighbors’ vantage point over the main characters.
Descending from the estate, the characters journey to Paris by train, only a forty-minute ride. On the way, they see a billboard that reads, “The World is Yours”. Even in this transition scene, the boundaries of the banlieue are not revealed, leaving their home in an ambiguously distant place.[13] Within this narrative, no physical boundary exists between estates and Paris, only the passage of time.
The placelessness of La Haine’s banlieue is congruent with Kassovitz’s representation of the main characters’ identities. The story describes the common experience of lower-class young men. They are held together by shared interests in music, drugs, anguish towards the police, and the “fracture sociale”, meaning the “increasing disparity between haves and have-nots in contemporary French society”.[14] Kassovitz fails to establish the multicultural differences between the three characters. Their token role in banlieue cinema as a Jewish man, a black man, and a beur (Maghrebi descent) are briefly mentioned but not contrasted with one another. Instead, like their estate, they are homogenized into an amorphous representation of multiculturalism. While the characters’ identity is dulled, other banlieue stories, like those of female or queer people are primarily excluded.
By excluding the spatial divide between the banlieue and the city center, Kassovitz destabilizes the identity of each place. As explained by Ackbar Abbas in “Building on Disappearance: Hong Kong Architecture and the City,” dematerializing a city through cinematic representation can transform it from a distinct “place” into a less tangible “space.[15] Without spatial boundaries, a new means of access emerges into and out of the city. In contemporary cities, new information technologies may be the entry point into dematerialized urban space. This currency is not easily accessed by the characters of La Haine, who are stuck in the tendencies of their youth. Rapid contemporary urban transformation erases historical and local references, typically memorialized through physical entities. The exclusion of a banlieue boundary supports one of the analogous functions of La Haine, which includes “an allegory of the blindness of postcolonial Europe to read its present in light of its past.”[16]
Paris at Night
As evening approaches, time stamps across the screen indicate the day passing towards a nerve-wracking conclusion. The audience can surmise that this timeline leads to something detrimental for the characters thanks to the story told multiple times throughout the film of a man who falls off a skyscraper. Hubert says, “On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far, so good… so far, so good… so far, so good. How you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you land!” Within this context, the timestamps make viewers believe that even if the characters are overcoming challenges throughout the film, it is only a matter of time before they face a painful fate.
At night, the three find a balcony again, this time all for themselves. From here they can look at Paris’ city center, symbolic of the wealth and resources that they as banlieue residents lack. As explained by Diamanti and Boudreault-Fournier, nighttime “allows one to grasp sensibilities that inform the day and that would go unnoticed otherwise.”[17] Between the usual crude banter between the characters, they feel briefly comfortable here to be intimate with one another. Vinz expresses to Hubert that he feels “like an ant lost in intergalactic space”. While it is left unstated, it is reasonable to believe that Vinz feels this at both the banlieue and in the city center. This conversation follows the arrest and abuse of Hubert and Said. Even here, the characters are not free from the control of the police. Violence follows them.
The screen is shared in this night scene between Vinz’s hands rolling a joint and the Eiffel Tower. The choice highlights the contrast between the lives of the characters and the prestigious context. When rolling, Vinz raps “You’re down with OCB? Yeah you know me.” This is a reference to OCB weed rollers as well as a 90’s American hip-hop song by Naughty by Nature. [18] Exemplified here, Kassovitz draws influence throughout the film from American culture and directors. He was reluctant to compare La Haine to other American “hood” films, likely because his work had a political purpose beyond the aesthetic value employed by directors like Quintin Tarantino. Kassovitz did succumb to the tendency of “hood” films to synthesize the experience of a youth culture, but instead of demonizing their actions, he clearly makes the police the antagonist.
Reminiscent of the previous roof scene, Said is wandering around the space unafraid to fall off the edge while Hubert and Vinz chat in the foreground. Instead of using the wide-angle lens with a deep depth of field, as was done in the estate scenes, Kassovitz uses much more conventional compositions in Paris scenes, including a shallower depth of field to focus on fewer details at once in each shot.[19] Even if the wide-angle lens had been used, shooting at night ensures the fading of background details as also exemplified in Hubert’s boxing scene. In either case, the darkness of the Parisian landscape is barely legible, with only the lights of buildings in the distance as a backdrop to the scene.
Like they do “in the movies”, Said tries to turn off the Eiffel Tower by snapping his fingers. It is unsuccessful as long as the men are watching. It is not until the characters’ voices fade away from the rooftop that the lights go out. Their blindness to the moment speaks to their incapacity to see a shifting city, or to see themselves as a shifting force. The tower lights eventually turning off is comparable to the cow in the banlieues, both instances of unexpected surrealism. Both are deviations from the mundane expectations of the characters’ daily lives and yet neither have implications on how they see their surroundings.
Said’s attempt to turn off the tower is a reference to the French film, Un Monde sans Pitié. In the original scene, a couple leans over a balcony admiring the Eiffel Tower.[20] Much like Vinz’s hands at the beginning of the scene, the main character’s hand is seen in the foreground, beside the glimmering structure. With the snap of his fingers he is able to turn the lights off, to the delight of his companion. Within the context of romantic comedies, the man is expected capable of controlling his environment in pursuit of love. The banlieue men however are rarely seen having a civil or romantic conversation with a female character. Throughout their consistent displays of male bravado, they are incapable of female connection. Here, the rooftop becomes symbolic of not only their isolation in relation to the city, but also to women.
The City Collective
Upon exiting this scene, Said stops to vandalize the recurring poster that says, “The world is yours”. Said changes the “nous” to “vous”, proclaiming that the world is ours, not yours. This change could be interpreted in two ways. Either, it is a declaration of agency, Said stating that the world belongs to his friends and not to the industries that profit off of this campaign. Alternatively, the change could mean the opposite. Said could be expressing that the world does not belong to you/vous, it instead belongs to an all-encompassing ‘us’. This interpretation would include the industry, police, and lawmakers that cause hardship to these men’s lives as rightful owners of their world.
Footage of the rooftop at night differs from the rest of the film in its calm, slow pace, in comparison to the quick MTV-editing, disarming camera angles, and lop-sided compositions of the remaining film.[21] It is a moment of reverence among the other night scenes, which tend to evoke fear or excitement in the viewer. In scenes like the car theft or the attempted club entry, Parisian nightfall is represented like most modern cities in nocturnal cinema, as grounds for the “hyperstimulation of the senses”. [22] As cinema consumers, we associate nighttime scenes with an anxiety of the unknown, with darkness and urbanization both contributing to paranoia. On the roof, this fear only heightens our anxiety of the impending fate, drawing nearer as nighttime has arrived.
The spaces that these characters can access comfortably are limited. By the definition of “The Care Manifesto”, they do not operate within many spaces of care.[23] A caring community would include mutual support, shared resources, and local democracy. It would include a variety of people, even people like Vinz, Hubert, and Said who are prone to the emergence of violence. Neoliberal markets and infrastructure, like that of Paris in the 90s, cannot value empathy, since it is difficult to commodify, whereas state violence, the division of labor, and racialized policies are highly lucrative.[24]
The two rooftop scenes, one in the day and one in the night, communicate the layers of isolation that the three young men face as individuals, friends, and banlieue inhabitants. The transition from the first scene to the latter is Kassovitz’s strategy to transport the characters from one spatial reality to another, without representing the physical implications of this voyage. Once transported through spatial ambiguity, the men are capable of seeing that the urban realities that torment them, like exclusion, classist division, and police brutality are not spatiality-fixed or site-specific. The use of nighttime, more than architectural devices, is effective at revealing the characters’ lack of agency. While it is evident to the viewer in earlier scenes, like the rooftop barbeque, that Vinz, Said, and Hubert lack the agency to enact change in their estate, it is not until they are framed by the lights or Parisien nightfall that they acknowledge how inconsequential they are in “intergalactic space”, here, or in the banlieue.
[1] Robert Park, On Social Control and Collective Behavior : Selected Papers, ed. Ralph H. Turner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 3.
[2] David Harvey, “The Right to the City,” New Left Review 53 (September/October 2008): 23.
[3] Roy Stafford, York Film Notes: “La Haine” (London : Pearson, 2000), 6.
[4] Stafford, 20.
[5] Ginette Vincendeau, “Designs on the banlieue: Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine (1995),” in French Film (London: Routledge, 2000), 317.
[6] Joe Hardwick, “Reframing the Periphery: Narrative Authority and Self-Reflexivity in Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine,” Australian Journal of French Studies 52, no. 2 (May 2015): 127.
[7] Harvey, 23.
[8] Stafford, 6.
[9] Stafford, 6.
[10] Stafford, 12.
[11] Stafford, 8.
[12] Vincendeau, 318.
[13] Stafford, 14.
[14] Carrie Tarr, Beur and Banlieue Cinema in 1995 (Manchester: Manchester University Press eBooks, 2019).
[15] Ackbar Abbas, “Building on Disappearance: Hong Kong Architecture and the City,” Public Culture 6, no. 3 (September 1994), 441.
[16] Hardwick, 133.
[17] Eleonora Diamanti and Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier, “The Aesthetics and Imaginaries of the Night in Cuba,” Ethnologies 44, no.1 (2022), 297.
[18] Stafford, 15.
[19] Stafford, 11.
[20] Antoine Beck, “Un Monde sans Pitié : ‘Quand La Tour Eifffel s’éteint’” Dailymotion, April 16, 2011. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xi8xwg.
[21] Vincendeau, 317.
[22] Steven Jacobs, “Panoptic Paranoia and Phantasmagoria: Fritz Lang’s Nocturnal City,” in Spatial Turns, ed. Jaimey Fisher and Barbara Mennel (New York: Radopi, 2010), 383.
[23] Andreas Chatzidakis et al., The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence (London: Verso, 2020), 53.
[24] Chatzidakis et al., 74.