The BFI will re-release the film in a 4K restoration in theaters later this year in the U.K.Starring Hubert Koundé, Saïd Taghmaoui and Vincent Cassel (in his breakout performance), “La Haine” is set over 19 consecutive hours in the lives of three young adults living in the impoverished, multi-ethnic French projects. La haine is on the Criterion Channel and Amazon Prime Video. If a musical is really made out of the film, as Kassovitz claims, perhaps the music will be taken from this album. The album thus is not strictly the film’s soundtrack, but offers a further dimension to the film, as each band recount their own experience of living in the suburbs, of police discrimination and brutality, or denounce the role of the media. The only exception is the Bob Marley song in the opening sequence, which accompanies the documentary footage.

The songs do not feature in the film itself, which has no musical soundtrack that isn’t diegetic-that is, all the songs heard during the film have their source within the images, such as a radio, and can be heard by the characters. Kassovitz told the artists the themes of the film and asked them to develop them as they saw fit in their music.Įach individual track in this compilation album were thus inspired by the script and themes of the film. It featured big names from the French hip-hop scene, such as IAM, Assassin, Sens Unik, to name just three.

The news of a La haine musical is not so surprising when considering that in 1995 an album of hip-hop music was released to accompany the film, called La haine, musique inspirée du film (La haine, music inspired by the film). They believe that as the film has now become part of French popular culture, it would be interesting to develop it into a musical, as has been done with Romeo and Juliet or Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.

Kassovitz explained on the French channel RMC/ BFM TV that he was approached by a big musical producing studio in Paris. The news that La haine could be turned into a musical may surprise some. It has since inspired many films in France, such as Houda Benyamina’s Divines, or last year’s Jury Prize at Cannes, Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables, which also stems from a real case of police brutality. It was selected at the Cannes Film Festival, where Kassovitz won the Best Director award. La haine was not the first French film on the banlieue, but it was the first of such films to have such a hugely popular reception, achieving international acclaim. Both-within their own cultural contexts-denounce discrimination and police brutality. La haine is the equivalent to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing in France.

La haine script