32 | Sight&Sound | May 2020
MATHIEU KASSOVITZ LA HAINE AT 25PREDICTING A RIOT
‘LA HAINE’ AND ‘DO THE RIGHT THING’By Kaleem Aftab
The reaction to La Haine in 1995 bore
remarkable similarities to the fanfare
surrounding Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing
in 1989. Critics in New York Magazine, Time
and USA Today argued that the latter film
was simply agitprop to incite the black
community to riot. They voiced fears
that the lack of a reconciliation between
Sal, the Italian owner of the pizzeria, and
his young black employee Mookie in
the film (pictured right), would lead to
riots outside the cinema when it opened.
In France, after the gala screening of La
Haine in Cannes, some members of the
press argued that Kassovitz’s film would
cause division and stoke fires. Libération
wrote: “[Uniformed police at the festival]
turned a hateful back to the team who
made the film that hates them.”There were no riots in New York
following the successful release of Do the
Right Thing. Yet, that summer, much of
the discussion around the film was about
its role in fomenting racial divisions.
Likewise, La Haine was a box-office
hit in France, and became a focus for
discussions on race and violence. On 8-9June, riots in Noisy-le-Grand, east of Paris,
were provoked by the death of Belkacem
Belhabib, who crashed his motorbike
while being chased by police. The events
were framed in the context of La Haine,
and sparked a debate about the role of
the film and the media in the unrest.
The fascist Front National leader Jean-
Marie Le Pen tried to join the dots when
he exclaimed: “Do these yobs have la
haine?” By contrast, Prime Minister Alain
Juppé urged government officials and
teachers from the suburbs to see the film.
Over time, the relevance of these two
films inspired by real-life events has,
unfortunately, remained high, especially
in relation to instances of police brutality.
But while they are never far from the
conversation, it’s now their artistry
that receives most of the attention.make it look good. But it doesn’t cost anything to
make it look good in black and white. If I showed
you La Haine in colour, it’s horrible.
KA: Why is the Earth seen from space in the first shot?
MK: Because the film deals with a global problem. The
joke, in the beginning, talks about the man who falls
from the building [“Heard about the guy who fell off a
skyscraper? On the way down past each floor he kept
saying to reassure himself: ‘So far, so good. So far, so
good.’ How you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you land!”]
The same joke at the end is a society that falls.
KA: Although La Haine still resonates today, it is a picture of
its time, especially in the characters’ choice of music. What
did hip-hop mean to you back then?
MK: Hip-hop is very important to me. Whereas my
father and my mother taught me about cinema, hip-hop
taught me life and politics. The movie is hip-hop. For me,
the definition of rap, which is inside the culture of hip-
hop, is: when you leave the dance floor, you’re smarter
than when you went in. [The rapper] KRS-One called it
‘edutainment’. That’s what it should be; you’re educated
and entertained. That’s the only way you can learn: by
having fun. That’s why hip-hop is all about learning and
transgressing, challenging everything and questioning –
I learned that from Public Enemy and KRS-One.
KA: In the 90s it seemed that a culture like hip-hop might
unite France and dissolve all barriers, in the same way as
winning the World Cup did. Do you think that feeling has
passed now?
MK: La Haine, the French football team, the hip-hop in-
dustry... they opened a lot of doors. Today, even if we’re
not at an equal level, it’s working, but it takes genera-
tions to make people change. Today, the most well-paid
and famous French actor [Omar Sy] is a black guy. The
guys who made Les Misérables [see page 36] are a bunch
of black Muslims and Chinese coming from the fucking
hood. You know, they’re 35 years old and were, like, ten
years old when we did La Haine. Of course, we inspired
them, but it takes time. You cannot inspire somebody
who’s the same age. You inspire the kids. That’s why I’m
very proud of La Haine – it encourages kids who were not
there. I get 15-year-old kids coming up to me every day
talking about the film. I have to recognise that, and I’m
very proud of that. Because that’s what you want when
you’re a director, you want to inspire, and to know that
your movie is not forgotten.
KA: What did you think of Les Misérables?
MK: I love the energy of the movie. I was very surprised
by the ending because it’s the same as La Haine. I’m not
in the projects any more – I’m 50 years old and I’m rich.
I have the same friends as before, but we’re not hanging
out any more. So, I cannot talk about what’s going on in
the hood or the projects. But these kids [Les Misérables di-
rector Ladj Ly and his cast and crew], they nailed it. People
need to have that shot of reality, reminding them that it’s
not over yet.
KA: Why did you decide for the first half of La Haine to show
the projects, and for the second half to be set in Paris?
MK: Because the subject of the movie was respect, knowl-
edge and ignorance. I knew that nobody knew these kidsPOETRY IN MOTION
‘What black and white does
is bring poetry into reality,’
says Mathieu Kassovitz
about his decision not to use
colour to shoot La Haine.
‘It doesn’t cost anything to
make it look good in black
and white’