Film

La Haine + live score

Director
Mathieu Kassovitz
Certificate
15
Running Time
98 mins

Mathieu Kassovitz was just 25 when he made this award-winning 1995 account of 24 hours in the lives of a trio of unemployed, ethnically diverse, petty thieving teens on a depressing Parisian council estate. When one of the delinquents acquires a gun from a careless cop during a riot which resulted in the death of a pal, it can only be a matter of time – which ticks by ominously on an onscreen clock – before the hopelessness and anger that’s eating away at him takes the violence to a new level. There are echoes of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing in Kassovitz’s skilful handling of this tense, explosive, angry, superbly acted and often surreally funny tale. One word of warning: if you’ve got a working knowledge of French, ignore those horrible subtitles, which seem to have been written by some cretin under the impression that it would be more “authentic” if the revolting French yoof used the argot of black American “homeboys”.

The film is screened with a reimagined live score performed by Asian Dub Foundation. Advance tickets are available here.

By robin askew, Friday, Mar 10 2017

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