Hubert in his bedroom scene analysis

This scene starts with Hubert entering his room and sitting down on the bed. We have a low angle close up of Hubert so that the audience feel close to him and identify with him more than Vinz or Said. After this there is a quick dissolve, which shows the passage of time, showing that he has nothing better to do. He also plays jazz music by Issac Hayes, a black american jazz artist. From this we can take that Hubert has a adopted a surrogate culture, this is further reinforced by the pictures of Muhammad Ali, Tommy Smith and John Carlos, all black icons in American black culture. The picture of Tommy Smith and John Carlos is from the 1968 olympics, where after beating a world record, stood on the podium and did the black panther salute. A defiant message the majority white of the USA. We can easily see why Hubert would draw inspiration from this, since he is in a similar position in France. As the scene moves along, we see Hubert starts cutting up and smoking a form of Cannabis. We already know he sells the drug to pay for the bills in the house. but we also see him smoking it himself in this scene. While he is doing this, the music fills all the sound of the film, despite it being played on Huberts stereo and is thus a non-diegetic sound. This shows the effects of the drugs, until his daydream is broken by someone shouting, the music then returns to being quieter and Hubert goes to look out of the window. This shot is contemplative and demonstrates Huberts deeper understanding of his environment and position in French society. Hubert sees a vast mix of non-white people. He literally sees the projects for what they are. Which is something akin to a holding pen or a zoo. Hubert is also the audiences way of understanding the projects. While he is looking out of the window we hear the diegetic sound of a helicopter, this shows us that there a constant sense of surveillance in the projects from presumably the state. We see Vinz and Said walk through the environment that Hubert is watching, but they are oblivious to them, this highlights the difference between Vinz and said, and Hubert. Vinz and Said are a part of this environment and are almost oblivious to the outside world, they lack awareness of their position in society. While we are looking through Huberts POV, we see him observing both youngsters and older people together in this environment. This shows there is not much opportunity as the children are not in any school nor the adults have jobs. This highlights the poverty and lack of opportunities there are for these people in this environment.