Paris of Pain

Released in the mid 1990s to great acclaim, Matthieu Kassovitz’s controversial “La Haine” (“Hate”), featuring Vincent Cassell as a hotheaded marginalised French youth, remains a good film (the politics remain unsettlingly relevant), with crisp black and white imagery. It is unfortunate that a film that is all about emotional turmoil, resistance against exploitation and the claws of anomy loses steam halfway through, unlike a similarly themed film that it is often favourably compared to: Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing”.

In my mind, Lee’s film is superior, but Kassovitz’s film does manage to give visual voice to those unwelcome to France: the Algerians, Afro-Caribbeans, and so on. If nothing else, it is difference that unites these characters who do cannot participate in the benefits of Parisian life due to their low income status.