The film will have a theatrical re-release in France and the U. K. later this year.
The cult French film, La haine, about police brutality in the Parisian suburbs was released 25 years ago. Its director, Mathieu Kassovitz, announced on Wednesday that he was preparing a musical adaptation of his film.
Kassovitz’s film still resonates today, twenty-five years later, echoing even beyond French borders. The film was made in response to the accidental shooting of Makomé M’Bowole in a police station in 1993. Riots soon followed in protest, just as the film shows in the opening documentary footage.
Set in a suburb of Paris, in the aftermath of a violent riot, La haine follows three inseparable friends, Hubert, Saïd and Vinz (Hubert Kounde, Saïd Taghmaoui and Vincent Cassel) for a day. Each has a very different personality. Hubert is the level-headed boxer who keeps on calming Vinz, the hothead of the trio, while Saïd mediates between the two. Angry at the police for killing one of theirs, the trio roam the suburb, then head to central Paris, where they meet more trouble. As Hubert says, hate attracts hate. However, as the film suggests, they are imprisoned within that cycle of hate.
La haine is the equivalent to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing in France. Both—within their own cultural contexts—denounce discrimination and police brutality.
