La haine

Mathieu Kassovitz took the film world by storm with La haine, a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France, specifically the low-income banlieue districts on Paris’s outskirts. Aimlessly passing their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Koundé), and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui)—a Jew, an African, and an Arab—give human faces to France’s immigrant populations, their bristling resentment at their marginalization slowly simmering until it reaches a climactic boiling point. A work of tough beauty, La haine is a landmark of contemporary French cinema and a gripping reflection of its country’s ongoing identity crisis.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1995
  • 97 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.85:1
  • French
  • Spine #381

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Mathieu Kassovitz, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
  • Audio commentary by Kassovitz
  • Introduction by actor Jodie Foster
  • Ten Years of “La haine,” a documentary that brings together cast and crew a decade after the film’s landmark release
  • Featurette on the film’s banlieue setting
  • Production footage
  • Deleted and extended scenes, each with an afterword by Kassovitz
  • Gallery of behind-the-scenes photos
  • Trailers
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: A new essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau and a 2006 appreciation by filmmaker Costa-Gavras

New cover by Neil Kellerhouse

Purchase Options

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Mathieu Kassovitz, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
  • Audio commentary by Kassovitz
  • Introduction by actor Jodie Foster
  • Ten Years of “La haine,” a documentary that brings together cast and crew a decade after the film’s landmark release
  • Featurette on the film’s banlieue setting
  • Production footage
  • Deleted and extended scenes, each with an afterword by Kassovitz
  • Gallery of behind-the-scenes photos
  • Trailers
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: A new essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau and a 2006 appreciation by filmmaker Costa-Gavras

New cover by Neil Kellerhouse

La haine
Cast
Vincent Cassel
Vinz
Hubert Koundé
Hubert
Saïd Taghmaoui
Saïd
François Levanthal
Astérix
Abdel Ahmed Ghili
Abdel
Karim Belkhadra
Samir
Edouard Mountoute
Darty
Solo
Santo
Joseph Momo
Ordinary guy
Héloïse Rauth
Sarah
Rywka Wajsbrot
Vinz's grandmother
Olga Abrego
Vinz's aunt
Mathilde Vitry
Journalist
Félicité Wouassi
Hubert's mother
Fatou Thioune
Hubert's sister
Cut Killer
DJ
Julie Mauduech
Gallery girl no. 1
Karin Viard
Gallery girl no. 2
Credits
Director
Mathieu Kassovitz
Writer
Mathieu Kassovitz
Executive producer
Christophe Rossignon
Line producer
Gilles Sacuto
Associate producers
Adeline Lecallier
Associate producers
Alain Rocca
Production manager
Gilles Sacuto
Director of photography
Pierre Aïm
Camera operator
Georges Diane
Sound
Vinecent Tulli
Edited by
Mathieu Kassovitz
Edited by
Scott Stevenson
Art director
Giuseppe Ponturo

Current

La haine and after: Arts, Politics, and the Banlieue
La haine and after: Arts, Politics, and the Banlieue
To start on a personal note: I wrote a book about La haine that came out in November 2005, just as the Paris suburbs (banlieues) erupted in an unprecedented wave of violence. Every night, as in the Bob Marley song we hear over the credits, there was …

By Ginette Vincendeau

“A Metaphor for Our World”
“A Metaphor for Our World”
These thoughts on La haine by director Costa-Gavras first appeared in the program book for the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, where the film was screened. La haine is a phenomenon, in that it is an abnormal, a surprising, and a rare event …

By Costa-Gavras

Heidi Bivens’s Top 10
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Daniel Lopatin’s Top 10
Daniel Lopatin’s Top 10

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Andrew Loog Oldham’s Top 10
Andrew Loog Oldham’s Top 10

Andrew Loog Oldham was the manager of the Rolling Stones and Marianne Faithfull from 1963–1967.

Dominic Monaghan’s Top 10
Dominic Monaghan’s Top 10

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