Section A Revision

La Haine

Key Words

• Ideology-A person or society's set of beliefs and values, or overall ways of looking at the world. 
• Assimilation-People of different backgrounds come to see themselves as part of a larger national family. 
• Cultural Assimilation-Process by a person or a groups culture/language comes to resemble those of another group. 

Context

• Algerians make up 1% of the French population.
• French national unemployment is 10.1% whereas unemployment in the projects is 20-40%.
• The Algerians were put in the internment camps whilst the Pied-Noir went free and were given land.
• Once released, Algerians were forced into shanty towns away from the middle class cities. This is where 'Les Banlieues' were later built.
• In the early 90's, more than 1 million Algerians resided in France and there were numerous Francophones in Algeria, creating a tremendous cultural overlap. 

Analysis 

Binary oppositions are utilised in La Haine as the film is split into two distinct halves-the Project and the City. This unusual narrative structure is more than just a stylistic choice by Kassovitz and it distinctly demonstrates the ideologies of the film. We learn about non-French's attitudes towards the City and it's inhabitants view of non-French people. The first half of the films shows the boys in the Project to introduce the environment, characters and their conditions. It also establishes the French/non-French divide as all the inhabitants of the Projects are non-French. The use of poverty in the Project reinforces the realistic framework of the film and further emphasises the divide. The train journey is the link between the two worlds for the boys and the cinematography changes almost immediately. In the Project, the camera was handheld and very fluid, almost resembling a documentary. The shots become a lot more static in the second half of the film and this reinforces how trapped the boys feel in the foreign environment. The use of the train journey demonstrates how far the two worlds are away from each other.