La Haine Monologue

Mathieu Kassovitz’s film La Haine focuses on the lives of 3 friends-Vinz, Said and Hubert. Each of the young men come from immigrant backgrounds and are combating the struggles of poverty. After a well known youth in the community is tortured by the police, a violent riot breaks out leaving Paris in flames. In the midst of the riot, a cop's gun gets misplaced and falls into the hands of Vinz. While Vinz comes from a Jewish background he is still white-passing. Nevertheless, there are common feelings of hatred for the police. Throughout the film we discover that Vinz is the most violent and short-tempered. In light of current events, desire for revenge, Vinz threatens to kill a cop if his friend in critical condition dies. In the ending, His

Kassovitz open’s his film with the narration, “How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land, so far so good”. In this time, viewers have a visual of a bottle torch falling towards the earth until it lands and causes an explosion. This visual could allude to the independent incident of the cop beating Abdel influencing the collective frustration of the minority community. Furthermore, in the end of the film we hear this exact quote said by Hubert to Vinz. Hubert compares the object falling to them in the projects. He states, “like us in the projects. So far so good…but how will we land”. In an environment heavily rooted in systemic racism, constantly having to combat police brutality and violence your future is left unclear. Hubert reminds us of the inevitable cycle of violence in poverty as it traps everyone in the projects. Throughout the film Kassovitz incorporates time stamps. Behind each visual we can hear a ticking clock. These timestamps imitate a ticking bomb that one can assume is leading up to Vinz's death. As we get closer to the final event we see chaos grow and develop. The day goes from casual days hanging out, to violent outbreaks. Nevertheless, the ticking clock that gives the impression of a bomb adds suspense, influencing viewers to wait as the final scene will leave you