Film A Strong Anti Police Message example essay topic

La Haine is a youth film made in 1995 and is set in the Banlieue, the French equivalent of a British council estate and the centre for crime, gun culture, drugs and extreme poverty. The film centres on 3 youth members of the Banlieue: Vinz, Hubert and Sayid, and looks at their problems from their perspective and their reactions to these problems. This indeed gives the film a strong anti-police message. But I do not believe this to be the central point of the film. I will explore the main point and how it is expressed throughout the film. The anti-police message is a big part of the film.

The kids of the Banlieue blame the system for their misfortunes: poverty, crime and no hope. This is emphasised by an inter-texulisation of Taxi Driver, when Vinz stares in a mirror pretending he has a gun and echoing the "you talkin' to me" statement of Taxi Driver. This is because the characters of both films are existentially lost and are living in an urban hell. They have no real purpose in life. Therefore, striking out at the police is a way of striking out at the system that has put them in their predicament.

This is expressed in many ways during the film. The film starts with one young person confronting a team of riot police claiming them to be murderers, as they have guns and the rioters only have rocks. This suggests that the police are bullies, ganging up on "defenceless young protesters. A riot is then shown through accelerated montage, shot in a documentary style: a form of verisimilitude, a realism operator. This is done using techniques such as shaky cam. It gives the riot scenes a sense of gritty realism so that it can suggest that the shots of police brutality are "real": a part of everyday life.

Another scene shows an act of rebellion against the system through graffiti. We get a shot / reverse shot of Sayid on his own and a line of policemen staring at what we think is Sayid. This lulls the audience into a false sense of security, as the film is following conventional film editing rules. But this sense of normality is shattered as the camera crabs along the line of staring police and we see Sayid at the back of their van spray-painting "Fuck the police" onto it. This shatters the illusion of the police upholding the law and shows that rebellion is occurring. When the 3 protagonists visit the hospital to see their wounded friend Abdel, the police won't let them through.

The police are only doing their job but are represented as uncaring, not allowing concerned kids through to see their seriously wounded friend. This suggests that the police are unjustly violent as they grab Sayid and take him away for refusing to go. When he is released, Sayid states that an "Arab wouldn't last a second in a police station", suggesting that the police are racist, a notion that is further enhanced by the arrest of Sayid and Hubert outside Snoopy's block of flats. They are taken to the station where they are beaten, strangled, sexually threatened and racially abused by comments such as " Arab son-of-a-bitch".

It also suggests that the police are corrupt, as they keep the drugs that Sayid was delivering. A confrontation on the roof of the Banlieue also carries strong anti-police messages. The kids will not honour the police's request of leaving the roof and instead dare the police to remove them, asking " who's gonna remove us, you in your little uniform"? Instead of obeying the police, they are challenging them.

It represents the police as being unfair to the kids, telling them they can't enjoy their own home. Even the use of digetic music helps to convey an anti-police message. This is done when we see a DJ scratching a French version of "Fuck the police", originally recorded by NWA. Yet, this is part of the central part of the film, which I believe is the English translation of the film's title: Hate or more specifically the central protagonists hate and the reasons behind it. The central protagonists follow a certain patriarchal ideology, that of the black American gangsta. They represent this ideology through dress iconography of baggy sports clothes and the constant utilisation of black ghettoisation slang.

Their Banlieue is covered in street art derived from black ghetto culture. They see the black American ghetto lifestyle as representative of their own through issues of crime, drugs and poverty. But this is just a front. They are force-fed this ideology through the media, the most powerful tool of communication, emphasised by talk of American TV programs and films such as Lethal Weapon. But they don't understand the true elements of ghettoisation. It is a masochistic front to cover a lack of identity.

It is this lack of identity that adds to their hate. Part of their hate is manifest through the characteristics of their chosen youth culture. They share the same misogynistic hatred of women that their gangsta heroes have. Their gang is overtly full of young men, which is reflective of a disenchanted patriarchal youth culture, which is evident in their hatred of women. They are only into women in a sexual way, evidenced by Sayid stating that he's got to get laid" and a confrontation with two women at a party where Sayid asks them if they " re any good at it and states "talk? About what"?

This leads the women to ask, "how can we respect you", to which Vinz retorts, "who do you think you, wonderbra bitch"? This shows a blatant lack of respect for women, while Vinz's comment shows the sexual connotations that are attached to these women by the youth of the Banlieue. The hatred of women is further enhanced by the language used to describe them: bitches, cows and even saying that one woman had aids, used in a derogatory manner. It is an unjustified hate, though, and may only exist because of their American ghettoisation connotations.

They also seem to hate the older generations. Two scenes suggest this. The first is when Vinz's grandma admonishes him for not going to the temple and the burning of a school. Vinz acts aggressively towards her and insists he wasn't involved. He also abuses an old upper-class male at a party in Paris when he tries to remove them for being abusive to guests. This hatred may exist due to the fact the older generation don't understand or they have more than the Banlieue people do, which is evidenced when the old man at the party explains to the guest that the protagonists are "troubled youths".

He does not understand the reasons why they are like they are. Another example of the hate manifest in the film is through racism. Throughout the film, Sayid and Hubert in particular are heckled for their race on many occasions. They are racially abused by corrupt cops, make references to race hate with comments like " do you want to be the next Arab to get shot" and picking out racist people in the public e.g. the man on the escalator and an eventual confrontation with the National Front.

This leads to a fight where Vinz takes one member away at gunpoint as punishment. Therefore race leads to violence and therefore hate. The protagonists feel they are being judged unfairly by their ethnic origin and hateful because of it. Perhaps the central reason for their hatred is the Banlieue and the life it provides them. They live in poverty, emphasised by Vinz not being able to get credit in the local store when he's short of money, Sayid not being able to afford a dollar for a hotdog and Hubert having to scrounge money for bills and having to rely on friends to steal necessary household items e.g. a sewing machine for him to survive. They hate their surroundings and state to a TV crew asking them questions that "it's not a zoo".

They feel like trapped animals, trapped in their own society. They are surrounded by crime, drugs and unemployment. They are forced to make their own arrangements to survive. This is emphasised by Sayid's comment to a homeless person: "My whole family are in jail. Get a job like everyone else". Sayid deals drugs to survive, engaging with a symptom of his hatred.

They seem to have no purpose in life. They just exist. Their lives don't seem to be going anywhere. This is emphasised early in the film where they just sit on pillars, talking about Candid Camera (another American program). They have no long-term plans for their future and whilst they hate their situation, they seem to do nothing about it, which makes them even more hateful. Hubert seems to be the only one who wants to make a change.

He tells his mum that he wants to leave the projects, as it's getting too dangerous. He saw boxing as an escape route until his gym got burned down, which emphasises that even if you do have prospects, they can be taken away by violence or your own kind. Hubert seems to be the most respectful of human life and has a grasp of humanity. He disagrees with violence and stops Vinz from shooting a policeman during a chase. Yet, he realises that the Banlieue is infused with violence and he needs to get out. He emphasises this by stating, "it's not punch-bags kids want to hit now".

Yet, he seems resigned to this fact after the burning of his gym and becomes a bigger part of the thing he hates most, instead of regaining the determination to work his way out of the Banlieue. On several occasions, it seems he might regain his determination as we witness his reaction to Vinz and several adverts that state "the future is yours". But ultimately Hubert has become disillusioned about life and has started to hate, the hate being manifested at the end by pointing a gun at a policeman, contradicting his determination to leave that was manifested by stopping Vinz from shooting a policeman. Ultimately, it is Vinz who is the ultimate symbol of hate.

He is overtly nihilistic and antagonistic. He is the most hateful and seems to hate everything. When a so-called "homeboy" gets shot, Vinz wants revenge instead of justice. He ultimately blames the system and uses it as a scapegoat for his own problem.

This is emphasised during an argument with Hubert in a Parisian lavatory. Hubert states that "In school, we were taught that hate breeds hate", to which Vinz responds " I didn't got to school - I'm from the streets, which taught me: turn the other cheek, you " re dead motherfucker. We live in a rat-hole and you do fuck-all to change it. I'm sick of the system".

He blames his problems on the system because it's easier than blaming yourself. He hates everything around him but if he analysed his situation, he would hate himself. This is why he takes his hatred out on those around him: friends, family, police, old people, upper-class people and women. He argues with them all and even points his gun on various people.

He does this because it distracts him from the real cause of his problems and hate: himself. It is easier to blame others than yourself. This is why Vinz is so hateful and nihilistic. He is fuelled by the contradiction that the system is to blame yet he doesn't do anything to help himself. Vinz ultimately suggests that humanity has reached nothingness. Overall, this hatred is represented by the inter-titles throughout the film that indicate the time.

Throughout the film, the length of time between titles and the difference in time between each inter-title time decreases more and more gradually. This is done to create tension within the audience. The decrease I time also represents a counting down of time. It's like the counting down of a time bomb: one of the characters is going to explode. This happens at 6: 00 when Vinz is accidentally shot by a cop.

At 6: 01 Hubert points a gun at the cop and a shot is fired. This represents the "explosion". It is the ultimate expression of hate: to explode. Conclusion Ultimately, La Haine centres on hate and the reasons that generate that feeling. The police are part of the reason for this hate but are not the central point of the film. They are merely just part of this point in an attempt to explain why youth have such hatred for life in general.

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