Analysis of Key scenes- Hubert in the Projects

Hubert is the only character of the trio in La Haine that is aware of his situation and so his reaction to the projects is important to understand what it is truly like.

In the first scene we can see Hubert home and family whom need a variety of different things that requires Hubert’s money; books for his imprisoned brother, a new sowing machine for his mother and money for food/bills, this shows us why Hubert sells drugs, not because he wants to become rich but simply to pay the bills, it is necessity rather than greed.

Hubert’s mother has three sons an is pregnant, Kassovitz decided to have this family dynamic for Hubert as it mirrors a common French stereotype of black-African families, for example Pascal Sevran is a famous news reader in France who one said that polygamy was a problem in black families and that having a black child is a crime, Kassovitz is attempting the show the polar opposites in culture of Hubert and his family and ‘ordinary’ French society.

The second important scene is Hubert in his bedroom where to began with we are placed very close to Hubert as we are able to sympathize with him in a way we might not be able to with Vinz or Said due to the fact that Hubert understands just as well as we (the audience) and especially the French audience do.

We see Hubert smoking a joint, which connects him to a cultural perception of black people being drug users and dealers, but most of all it shows how he has nothing to do: no opportunities, this is in direct conflict with the message of the posters on his wall of black Athletes who are symbols of optimism and ethnic solidarity, this expression of ethnic solidarity is imported to Hubert from America so that he can have an identity that is not French or African but an American surrogate culture.

Looking out of the window of his apartment Hubert is showing his experienced view of the projects, the first thing he see’s is children on climbing frames that resemble soldiers riding a horse and the diegetic sound of helicopters in the background, this connotes the idea that the children of the projects are doomed also to fight the war against the French establishment, these children are all of ethnic minorities (Black or Asian) to show us that this battle is fought between the white French and the ethnic minorities.