La Haine opening sequence essay – Niamh Gallagher

La Haine opens with a montage depicting various shots of police brutality and riots. The montage of riot footage grounds the film in reality and creates a ‘realist framework’ that the film takes place within. This prepares the audience for a realistic account of Parisian life. Not even a minute into the film the audience is being manipulated by the director to already view the police as antagonists. This reinforces the message and the themes of the film. Hubert narrates over it – ‘Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? 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.’  This is a metaphor for how Hubert sees the world, how it is evitable going to fall into chaos. The shot of the firebomb also reflects Hubert’s anti-establishment worldview – apocalyptic and ending in flames.

During the montage, the audiences see rioters and police officers battling it out. Their surroundings look like a warzone. This challenges the audiences’ expectations of Paris being this beautiful, shining city of romance and art. The police are militarised with batons, guns and body armour – they are preparing for an all out war. This is another instance where the director manipulates the audience. Seeing how well prepared the police are creates sympathy for the people of the projects as the police are being portrayed as a threat and being powerful and dangerous. Even the song being played in the background, the perfectly chosen ‘Burnin’ and Lootin’ by Bob Marley, corresponds with this. The lyric ‘all dressed in uniforms of brutality’ shows the full extent of how vulnerable the civilians are against the police and their abusive power.  This encourages the audience more to view the police as brutal and antagonistic.

Another shot were the police are shown negatively is when the scene first cuts to protestors innocently dancing. Quickly the scene changes to police acting violently and instigating an attack against the protestors. They protestors engage them in an act of self-defence. The police here almost look like they are enjoying the violence. Here the citizens are being shown as oppressed and heroic, the juxtaposition to the police’s portrayal.  The difference between the two factions is reinforced multiple times by the director, even to the point actors playing the police get separate credits to those who play people from the projects. This is all clever propaganda by the director to quickly give his audience the main themes of the film.