La Haine’s depiction of Paris as an antagonistic landscape
Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine (1995) depicts the rising tension between the youth of an underprivileged Parisian suburb called la cité des Muguets, and the French police. In doing so, it focuses on the day following a riot sparked by the brutalization of a youngster from la cité, by the police - and what turns out to be a turning point in Vinz, Said and Hubert’s lives. It is Vinz, the most enraged of the three, who finds the gun that was lost during the chaos, and swears to avenge his friend, were he not to wake up from his coma.
La cité des Muguets, designated as “la cité” throughout the film, could in fact be described as an antagonistic landscape for the three main characters. A personification of the space occurs through its naming, allowing it to slide into the role of an active character of the film. The different cinematic techniques used in the film then become a translation of the landscape’s actions, as it interacts with Vinz, Said and Hubert. In doing so, la cité’s role – and later Paris’ - in terms of the three main characters continuously shits from a space of malaise, to a setting for their shared struggle as they attempt to find their place within the space.Please watch the following clip from 8:40 to 9:20:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xan9q0_la-haine-partie-5-fr_shortfilms
This clip depicts the trio’s first encounter with Paris. By combining a zoom in and a dolly shot that increases the distance with the subjects, Paris here slowly becomes a backdrop, thus changing from an actual landscape to a setting. Indeed, the “argument” (Andrews, 5), or principal subject of the frame, clearly shifts from the capital to the narrative as Vinz replaces focus on their actions when he asks “So, what now?” Yet, in the evolution of the space’s role, focus remains on the characters as their actual belonging to the space is questioned and redefined by the space itself: it slowly rejects the characters when it compresses, not lending them the opportunity of making it a place for themselves.
Another way in which la cité can be read as an antagonistic landscape is through the cinematic translation of the characters’ here/there space, and in terms of what de Certeau calls their “spatial practices” (96). That here/there motion either points out to a movement (i.e. when the here/there space is actually that space and moment purposefully leading to a there, as the movement becomes the characters’ enunciation within the space while they get to a place), or a pause (i.e. the fusion of the characters’ feeling, experience and memory within the space). The difference is visually translated by the contrast between the film’s still shots within a moving space (e.g. in a car or in the train), and the handheld tracking shots within a contained space (e.g. la cité).
Little stillness occurs as we follow Vinz, Said and Hubert’s constant roaming in la cité. This motion thus accentuates their here/there space, as they struggle to find their actual place and belonging to the space. The little moments of pause that take place, both in terms of a suspended motion of the camera and of the subjects themselves within the space, mostly occur in wide open spaces that contrast with la cité’s rigid and linear architecture. The following clip illustrates this point – please watch from 2:26 to 4:00:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMXkbBIBjJY&feature=related
The three main characters’ use and enunciation within the space (97, de Certeau) therefore denotes of their belonging to the below structure, as they feel their way around la cité. The police somehow become a literal translation of the above structure, as they represent the order and structure, and the antithesis of the trio. With an emphasis placed on what is being felt, Vinz, Said and Hubert succeed in turning the space into place at few instances throughout the film; interestingly enough, as the following two stills demonstrate, the place is in fact marked by graffiti, thus literally investing emotion and meaning within the space, defying the above structure and forcefully making sense of it as a place (10, Cresswell).
The characters’ uneasiness within the space is also transmitted to the viewer through another cinematic feature. The fourth wall is recurrently broken throughout the film, thus re-questioning the space for the viewer, and somehow placing him/her within the narrative space. This takes place in the scene where the three characters intrude an art gallery in Paris and judge an art piece.
By doing so, they are in fact looking straight into the lens, indirectly questioning the film itself (i.e. it being the ‘art piece’), and our position as viewers. Indeed, we are placed within the space and as part of the space - and it is our place and sense of belonging to the space that is thus questioned by the protagonists.
The viewer’s understanding of the landscape is also dictated by another feature of the film: sound. The film’s soundtrack helps shift the function of the portrayed landscape from setting to actual landscape, as it juggles between diegetic sound and music. In the latter, it appears that the selected parts of the landscape are to be viewed from a voyeuristic standpoint, whereas the former places the narrative in the foreground. The following scene illustrates the shift from one function to the other:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js2_hBDi2LI
This shot starts with diegetic sounds, as we appropriately hear what corresponds to what we see. Yet, as Cut Killer starts mixing, the music itself takes over and the shots with shallow focus and within a constraining space are replaced with a wide aerial shot of la cité. Although a voyeuristic approach here becomes appropriate for the viewer, the distorting lens and movement of the camera break the romanticized vision of Paris he/she might be used to watching - and that a film such as Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie (2001) might epitomize.
La Haine (1995) Mathieu Kassovitz, 98 min.
Amelie (2001) Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 122 min.
Andrews, Malcolm. “Land into Landscape.” Landscape and Western Art. Oxford University Press, 1999. 1-24 (ch 1).
de Certeau, Michel. “Walking in the City.” The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 91-110.
Cresswell, Tim. “Introduction: Defining Place.” Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 1-16.
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