La Haine - National Cinema

The stylistic choices made by filmmakers define not just the look but also the meaning of a film?
How far is this true of the film you have studied for this topic?

La Haine is a part of national cinema. This means that it rejects the generic conventions of crime and drama films we usually see that are apart of global cinema. La Haine rejects global cinema by rejecting character types. There is no specific protagonist or antagonist in the film. We see the film from the perspective of the people living in the projects who are criminals but we are manipulated into thinking they're not and that the police are because of police brutality.  However, there are no evil acts made by the criminals, or good ones. We don't see any villains or heroes, just people who have committed small crimes. This makes the film more realistic as in real life we don't have pure evil or pure good people, we just have people who make good choices and bad choices. In real life people are more complicated than just being evil or just being good and this is shown in La Haine with Vinz, he is a criminal but deep down he is not a bad person he just lives in a bad environment. This is different in City of God, which is a part of global cinema, as the characters types are simple. Lil Ze is pure evil and only commits evil acts and Rocket is pure good and has goals for his life like meet a girl or become a photographer.

Another way La Haine rejects the conventions of global cinema is by not having a real narrative. There is nothing that the characters are trying to accomplish for the narrative. They have motivations but they don't have anything to do with the narrative. Said's motivation is to get money for a drug deal and that is why they go to Paris but they don't go there for another specific reason and it doesn't effect the narrative. Vinz's motivation is to kill a police officer to get revenge for one killing Abdel but they don't know if he will die till the end of the film so throughout the film its just Vinz waiting to find out, this seems to be the primary motivation in the film and what is the closest to the narrative but nothing happens. Hubert's motivation is to get freedom and equality, he doesn't do anything about it or anything to get this so it has no effect on the narrative. The film also has no resolution, Vinz gets killed and then we see Hubert and a police officer pointing a gun at each other and then one gets shot off screen and we don't know what happens then. The ending is also very similar to the beginning. Someone is killed by a police officer and then there is a riot (people will riot when they see that the police have killed another person). You could even say that the ending is worse than the beginning as another person is dead and maybe a police officer too, and if not the police officer then there are two dead people from the projects and if that happens then Said will have been taken by the police officer and tortured again. The structure of La Haine is very unfocused as it is just following the characters around living their life like any normal day and seeing where it takes them whereas in City of God the structure is very focused and follows a narrative. It follows the rise and fall of Lil Ze and takes place through 30 years.

Another way La Haine rejects the conventions of global cinema is by rejecting generic conventions. There is no specific genre for La Haine but there are hints of a few genres in the film, such as crime or drama, but not enough to be a specific genre. We see criminals who want to kill someone, but it was only going to happen if Abdel died which we didn't find out about until the end and then Vinz was talked out of it by Hubert so that crime doesn't take place. Another hint of crime genre is the people working against the police, who are supposed to be the good guys but we only see them torturing and beating people up (except for one police officer who is trying to help them but Vinz doesn't see it like that). More crime that happens in the film is Said getting money from a drug deal, the trio go to Paris so that Said can get 500 Francs for a drug deal and then they end up staying in paris till the end of the film when they go back home. The trio spend about half the film in Paris just because Said wanted to get the money but there was no other motivation for going there. This is a crime but not a very big one, the deal is only one scene long and then after that it isn't mentioned again and it is forgotten.