SSC Film Studies

How does the structure of La Haine convey some of the key messages and values of the film?

The film is structured in two halves the first half is the projects, the projects are completely separated from the city, this emphasises the segregation in France, it is very bleak and there is a lot of people in the project and shown by the cuts to the time, it is in the day and none of these people are in work or school which illustrates lack of education opportunity, and employment.

In the DJ killa scene in the projects the camera looks like it is flying which represents freedom (DJ killa) and then it falls down on the trio which shows how even though he is talented and is almost out of the projects he cant quite make it, this is representative of how even though someone is very talented and should be making a lot of money, they are still stuck in the Banlieues. Even though the projects could be seen as a prison to the “non – French” the trio are very comfortable in the environment due to it being where they grew up.

Between the two halves of the film there is another sequence on the train to Paris. In real time it takes from 50 up to 2 hours on the train to get to Paris so this illustrates how the characters are positioned away from the city. While on the train Hubert sees a poster that says “the world is yours” and this appears twice in the film, at first when Hubert looks at it he seems comforted by it as it seems very welcoming, then he realises that the poster is not meant for him due to it being in Paris and not in the Banlieues.

The first scene in Paris is in a vertigo shot which shows the city as visually repelling the characters and once that stops and the characters are in focus the first thing Vinz does is spit on the floor, which represents him rejecting the city back. The trio is discriminated against nearly everywhere they go.

They see the Eiffel tower which is shown at night, and with the film being in black and white it is very bleak, and makes the symbol of France unobtainable to the trio. The Eiffel tower turns off after they leave which could suggest that it is because they are there and the culture needs to be denied to them, but the Eiffel tower turning off could also foreshadow the trouble they are going to get into.

The fact that the film is in black and white illustrates the views of French culture so there’s black (non French) and white (French) and this view makes the country very bleak much like the way black and white makes the film bleak.