SSC Film Studies

Explore how the opening sequence of your chosen film introduces the key themes of the film

The director of La Haine uses any techniques in the opening sequence of this film in order to manipulate the audience into thinking that the police are enemies and that the citizens are vulnerable, oppressed and heroic. The director does this to get his message across about the police killing citizens during the 1993 riots in Paris.

The film begins with a shot of real footage, which shows an army of police in the distance, and a citizen stood near to the camera with his back to the camera, facing the army of police. This specific placing of the camera puts the audience on the side of the citizen, looking over at the army of police, which tells the audience straight away that the police are the antagonists and the citizens of Paris are the protagonists.  Furthermore, we can see an army of police in this shot whereas only one antagonist is placed in the frame to manipulate the audience into thinking that the citizens are vulnerable. Also, we can not see the faces of the police in this shot, all we can see is numerous police men stood in a line looking the same as one another, this introduces a theme of human brutality and highlights the idea that the police work against citizens rather than protecting them and making them feel safe in their own home.

Whilst the audience are shown the credits and real footage from the riots in the opening sequence, the song ‘Burnin’ and Lootin’’ by Bob Marley and The Wailers is playing. The first line of this song is ‘this morning I woke up in a curfew’ which reflects on the film as Saïd wakes up in a curfew every morning. The next line says ‘O God, I was a prisoner, too – yeah!’ which implies that the citizens are prisoners of their own neighbourhood as they are under a curfew. The second verse of this song begins with ‘How many rivers do we have to cross, before we can talk to the boss? Eh!’, this line is significant as it is the citizens point of view as they are asking how many challenges they have to face against the police before their voices are heard.  Moreover, this song also mentions the ‘uniforms of brutality’ suggesting abuse of power and that the citizens look down on the police as they are their enemies.