La Haine: Anger, Distance, and the Politics of Being Seen
Released in 1995, La Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz remains one of the most direct films about urban anger in modern European cinema. Set over twenty-four hours in the Paris banlieues, the film observes how violence, policing, and social neglect shape daily life. Nearly three decades later, its questions feel unchanged. Who gets protected, who gets watched, and who gets left behind?
La Haine opens in the aftermath of a riot. A young man has been beaten by police and lies in a coma. From this moment, the film tracks three friends (Vinz, Saïd, and Hubert) as they move between the outskirts of Paris and the city center. The plot is simple. What gives it weight is what it refuses to soften.
Kassovitz chooses black and white not as style alone, but as distance. The absence of color strips away comfort. It pushes the viewer to focus on faces, gestures, and words. The banlieue is not romanticized. It is shown as a space shaped by control, boredom, and constant pressure. Police presence is routine, not exceptional. Humiliation is casual, not dramatic.
The film’s most cited line “So far so good… but it’s not the fall that matters, it’s the landing” acts as a warning rather than a slogan. It speaks to a society that believes it can keep falling without consequence. Vinz takes this idea personally. He believes violence might return dignity. Hubert, by contrast, wants escape and stability. Saïd survives by talking, joking, and mediating. None of these paths offer resolution. Kassovitz does not rank them. He lets them collide.
What makes La Haine endure is its refusal to explain away anger. Vinz is not violent because he is irrational. He is violent because he feels unseen. The film insists that rage does not appear from nowhere. It grows through repetition: police stops, closed doors, limited choices. This is where the film touches the present.
Across many countries today, similar tensions define public life. Protests against police violence, debates about surveillance, and the language of “security” over justice remain common. From Paris to Minneapolis, from London to Jakarta, questions about state power and marginal communities continue to surface. La Haine does not predict these events. It shows the conditions that allow them to return.
Kassovitz’s direction stays close to the ground. Long takes follow the characters through streets, trains, and housing blocks. The camera rarely rises above them. This keeps the story tied to movement and friction. When the trio enters Paris, the shift is clear. They are watched more closely. Their presence feels unwelcome. Space itself becomes political.
The film also avoids easy moral balance. Police officers are shown with authority, not nuance. This choice has drawn criticism, but it also reflects the characters’ lived reality. For Vinz, Saïd, and Hubert, the police are not individuals. They are a system. Kassovitz asks viewers to sit with that perception, even if it feels uncomfortable.
Recently, Jakarta Cinema Club, in collaboration with Institut Français d’Indonésie (IFI), screened La Haine as part of The After Hours program. The screening was a full house. Many in the audience were watching the film for the first time. Others were returning to it after years. The discussion afterward revealed how strongly the film still connects. People spoke about protests, class anxiety, and the feeling of being ignored by institutions. The setting was different. The emotions were familiar.
That response matters. It suggests that La Haine is not preserved as a historical artifact. It remains active. Its images still provoke thought rather than nostalgia. Its anger still asks to be examined rather than dismissed.
In today’s political climate, where social media accelerates outrage and attention spans shorten, La Haine feels almost patient. It takes time to show how pressure builds. It trusts silence. It refuses a heroic ending. The final moments do not offer release. They underline the cost of delay and denial.
La Haine is often described as a film about violence. It is more accurate to say it is about proximity. How close we are willing to stand to lives unlike our own. How far systems can push people before collapse feels normal. Kassovitz leaves us at the moment before impact. What happens next, he suggests, depends on whether we keep saying “so far so good.”
Also read: Au Revoir les Enfants: Memory, Silence, and the Cost of Indifference