La Haine

When La Haine premiered in 1995, it was less a film than a shockwave. Written and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, the story unfolds over 24 hours in the lives of three young men - Vinz (Jewish), Saïd (North African), and Hubert (of African descent) - who drift between the banlieues and the heart of Paris after a night of riots sparked by police brutality. The film captured a moment of crisis in France, but it also prophesied tensions that still resonate decades later.

Kassovitz was motivated by real events. In 1993, a teenager named Makomé M’Bowolé died in police custody, sparking unrest in the suburbs. Kassovitz, then in his twenties, began writing the screenplay the next day. His intention was not only to dramatize the fractures between police and marginalized youth but also to show the humanity, humor, and contradictions within those communities.

The film’s visual language became as iconic as its subject. Shot in stark black-and-white by cinematographer Pierre Aïm, La Haine draws on documentary realism while borrowing from the dynamism of American cinema - tracking shots, crane movements, even a slow-motion nod to Scorsese’s Mean Streets. The choice of monochrome wasn’t just aesthetic: it stripped the banlieue of color-coded clichés, giving the story a timeless, universal quality, while also accentuating contrasts - light and shadow, hope and despair.

The camera often moves with restless energy, echoing the volatility of its characters. One famous shot glides from the projects into the city center, collapsing distance and showing how these worlds coexist yet remain alienated. Another sequence uses a revolving 360-degree pan to trap the characters in their own arguments, the camera circling as if time itself is running out.

La Haine became a cultural flashpoint, winning the Best Director prize at Cannes and sparking national debates in France about police violence and urban inequality. Its influence radiated far beyond cinema. The film’s style - its monochrome palette, street-level immediacy, and kinetic camerawork - reshaped the look of European cinema in the 1990s and beyond. Its imagery was picked up in music videos, fashion photography, and advertising, where the stark black-and-white aesthetic became a shorthand for authenticity and rebellion. Directors such as Romain Gavras and Ladj Ly (who later made Les Misérables) have cited La Haine as a touchstone, while its rhythm and framing can be traced in everything from rap videos to Nike commercials.

Beyond its social urgency, La Haine endures because of its style: Kassovitz fused anger with elegance, rawness with craft. The closing line—“so far, so good” - lands like a prophecy, and like the film’s imagery, it lingers in the mind long after the credits fade.