Review Questions for La haine (Hatred)

Read first the interviews with the director on the class web page.

1. Analyze the relation of the main characters to their surrounding spaces.  Compare their relation to urban space in the projects and the city. How does the camera approach the characters in relation to space?

2. How is the vicious cycle of hatred articulated in the film? What role play class and/or race in that cycle?

3. How does the use of sound, camera angles, black and white photography, and editing technique contribute to the drama in the film?

4. Analyze the implications of the story about a person falling from the skyscraper told in different moments of the film(“... So far so good... It’s not how you fall, it’s how you land”). How does it work as a metaphor of the characters’ lives and of society as a whole? (Full quote is in the class web page).

5. What is the significance of the strange encounter in the Paris restroom and the story told about missing the train on the way to Siberia?

Remember to cite your sources in full.