La Haine & City of God Easter Homework

How far can it be argued that your chosen films provide a ‘realistic’ representation of the people and places they focus on? The two films that I am studying are City of God and La Haine, As La Haine is starting you see real footage of the riots which happened in the time the film was set, All the ‘Non-French’ people in France people would be segregated from the rest of the French community because they were different and they don’t have the same rights as the French community, at the start of the film you see this real footage of the riots this gave the film a documentary effect on the film this would indicate that the film is based on real story, La Haine is based on 3 Projects within the French community and you see their point of views in the this film because you can see how the French projects were treated by the police. Vinz, Said and Vincent are all friends from different ethnic backgrounds and the film shows us a realistic view of all three of them. Vinz is white Jewish, Said is Arab-African French and Vincent is Black African this shows three different perspectives of the projects. This can be seen as realistic because it is set in a real life setting and the narrative is based on real people within this segregated community. During the scene on the top of the roof and Said cannot afford a 5 franc hot dog this indicates how poor the projects are in the film because 5 francs in British pounds it is only 50p and they cannot afford this, this can prove how realistic this film is because it shows how the projects can suffer with no money.

 When you first see Vinz’s family you see his mother sewing clothing this could either be repairing their own clothes out they have to do this for money this indicates how the ‘non-French’ community suffer within France. During this film you see a point of view from Said and Hubert in the police station being interrogated by the police and this shows how the police would treat the Projects because even though they didn’t do nothing they would suffer due to the power which the police have. There were 300 deaths to the projects in France and this can be seen as being realistic in the La Haine film because you see two deaths to characters the leader and Vinz these are 2 of the 300 deaths which happened.

City of God can be seen as realistic because this is seen as a films set on the Drug war in Brazils Favelas and it starts with followers of li’l zé running through the favela chasing a chicken this could indicate that this film is showing a realistic point of view from the city because the Brazil city is known as poverty ridden and this would be the sort of activity the men would use for entertainment. During the start you would be able to indicate who the drug lord is due to him giving the orders to the other men and the men obeying his orders. This shows a realistic POV of the drug community because when you are a drug lord this entitles you to Power and people will obey Li’l zé’s orders. City of God can be seen as being stylized because you only see the view of the poverty side and it is seen in a cosmetic view in the real poverty city it will be seen as much worse, during the film you do not see no point of view of the rich so that the audience cannot see the main difference between the rich and poor.

The Police are seen as this point of authority in La Haine, the police are seen as a threat to the 3 main characters Vinz, Said and Hubert this is because they are all segregated from the white French community the police are seen as a threat because they are more for the French rather than the “non-French” whilst the riots were happening there was 300 deaths to immigrants all in the hands of the police this can be seen at the point at the end when the police officer shoots Vinz he was threatening Vinz with the gun and then he pulled the trigger by mistake and killed Vinz this is just one of the 300 deaths which happened due to segregation in France. In City of god it can show another side to the police, because the city is drug ridden and there are drug lords everywhere it’s hard to eliminate the drugs from the favela so you don’t see as much police there. Death isn’t a big problem in Rio because people die all the time and when it comes to a death it doesn’t make a difference but in La Haine one death can be broadcasted over France and there is more importance to a death in France then there is in Rio. When you are drug Lord it gives you an auto entitlement of power because people will come to them for help this would be such things like robbing medicine for the money they have rather than buying the medicine with the money which they don’t have.

Both La Haine and City of God can be seen as realistic because it shows real life situation which are still happening, such things like Crime rate in South Africa is still high and represented by the film, La Haine shows how the ‘non-French’ were treated and it is shown by Vinz Death is just one of the 300 who died during that time and it shows how the Police were corrupt due to them protecting the citizens but actually committing violent crimes against them. La Haine can show how immigrants were treated and there is a clear difference on how they were treated to those that are French.