When you hear ‘groundbreaking black-and-white French cinema’, it’s easy to think of some nouvelle-vague classic from the 1960s. But Mathieu Kassovitz attained this description in the 1990s with La Haine. 

In this brutally harsh, gritty and at times visually overwhelming picture Kassovitz encapsulates the realities of the racial and social differences and violence in modern France, in particular the banlieu of Paris. Characters Vinz, Hubert and Saïd find themselves without purpose in the concrete environment of the Parisian outskirts, as their frustration with the failing system and everyday realities of marginalization slowly builds up, until it reaches a boiling point. 

A movie that, although more than thirty years old, feels awfully relevant today as the scapegoating of immigrant communities shapes our national and international politics and drives the rise of nationalism and isolationism.

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