HBO's "The Wire" understands the dramatic opportunities of shocking disparity. In his only trip out of the inner city, Marlo travels to a St. Martin’s bank to personally check up on his money. When McNulty unsuccessfully attempts to stay sober and live a normal family-life, it's the sight of him in uniform or at the dinner table that gives a frisson.
So it is, too, with "La Haine," Mathieu Kassovitz's searing, wide-eyed look at Parisian housing projects. Three friends, Vinz, Hubert, and Saïd, travel into the city in the afternoon/evening of the day chronicled in the film. After missing the train back, they decide to go to a pretentious artist’s opening. After boorishly drinking and approaching women, they are kicked out. The pointlessness of their way of life is nakedly on display when in contrast to this caricature of “acceptable” society.
The kids don’t know any better. Where they’re from, every conversation is an argument or a trading of insults. Parents are absent or useless. Cops, the only other visible authority figures, are inept, corrupt, or otherwise dangerous. Again in the city, Vinz is unbelieving at the politeness of a city cop. In the projects, cops and kids are forever at war. Violence leads to revenge leads to more violence.
Kassovitz is a master of the rack focus shot—that technique in which a person in the background sees something in the foreground, whereupon foreground object pops into focus.* It can be used in other ways, of course. Upon first meeting Saïd, the camera swoops above his head and racks its focus to the bruised and armored cops protecting their precinct. This, combined with the unflinching gaze of black-and-white film, connotes the tension to come in every scene. Suppressed violent and otherwise felonious urges can be released at any time, and often are.
So it is, too, with "La Haine," Mathieu Kassovitz's searing, wide-eyed look at Parisian housing projects. Three friends, Vinz, Hubert, and Saïd, travel into the city in the afternoon/evening of the day chronicled in the film. After missing the train back, they decide to go to a pretentious artist’s opening. After boorishly drinking and approaching women, they are kicked out. The pointlessness of their way of life is nakedly on display when in contrast to this caricature of “acceptable” society.
The kids don’t know any better. Where they’re from, every conversation is an argument or a trading of insults. Parents are absent or useless. Cops, the only other visible authority figures, are inept, corrupt, or otherwise dangerous. Again in the city, Vinz is unbelieving at the politeness of a city cop. In the projects, cops and kids are forever at war. Violence leads to revenge leads to more violence.
Kassovitz is a master of the rack focus shot—that technique in which a person in the background sees something in the foreground, whereupon foreground object pops into focus.* It can be used in other ways, of course. Upon first meeting Saïd, the camera swoops above his head and racks its focus to the bruised and armored cops protecting their precinct. This, combined with the unflinching gaze of black-and-white film, connotes the tension to come in every scene. Suppressed violent and otherwise felonious urges can be released at any time, and often are.
*See: every horror film ever made: “What’s up with that crazy doorknob? Oh God, now it’s in focus!”
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