Imagine Nas in the mythic playgrounds of the war-torn Queensbridge project’s, rapping “The World Is Yours,” the likely reference behind La Haine’s billboard.
A yearn for control ripens into hate and for some, self-hate. The cops beat another Arab teenager into a coma and the projects react in outrage, destroying their own buildings and hangouts and burning down the school. How do you own something that ignores you? They tag their own billboards, like “Fuck The Police” on the back of a paddy wagon. As immigrants of housing projects shuffled away in the poor streets of the Banlieues, the three are not of this encouraging world. Of a gang of three grown teenagers, Hubert is the only one to notice. “The World Is Yours,” reads a passing billboard on the subway to Paris. Saïd’s manic conversation and needed humor is most naturally written while Vinz’s tendency is to indulge in the victimization of his Arab and African friends. Like the multiculturalism of hip-hop, the black guy’s gotta be on top-automatically authentic. Hubert’s romanticized as a samurai: strong, responsible and poetic. African, Arab and Jewish, they connect decisively through hip-hop and the constant threat of the racist state. Hubert, Saïd, and Vinz are no Benetton poster. La Haine is the “hate” of forgotten young men.
L to R: Vincent Cassel as Vinz, Sad Taghmaoui as Sad (center, out of focus), and Hubert Kound as Hubert in LA HAINE.