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Film Notes:
HATE
Credits and notes
are contained in your course packet.
Discussion questions:
1. Describe the three main protagonists in the film--Hubert, the
Afro-Caribbean, Said, the North African, and Vinz, the Jewish character--and
their relationship with each other. How do the three characters
identify themselves in relation to their immigrant families/parents,
France and French national culture, the international youth culture,
gangs, the police, their ethnic heritage?
2. In his book Immigration, 'Race', and Ethnicity in Contemporary
France (1995), Alec Hargreaves writes: The most influential
model for youth gangs of immigrant origin in France is the Zulu
Nation, founded in New York in 1975 by the black American activist
Africa Bambatta. Since the mid-1980s, its example has been followed
in many of France's banlieues. Most of these gangs, who refer to
themselves generally as Zulus, have chosen American-English names
such as Black Dragon, Criminal Action Force and Fight Boys. They
dress in the stylized fashion of young black Americans, incorporate
liberal doses of American English into their linguistic codes [the
so-called verlan, back-slang], and have adapted the rhythms of rap
into newly inflected forms of French. While physically confined
to small localities within particular banlieues, in their signifying
practices they are part of a global post- colonial culture. ...
Gang members share linguistic and other codes and identify with
particular territories, both concrete and mythical. Gang cultures
do not, however, represent a continuation of the cultural traditions
imported by immigrants. They owe far more to the youth cultures
of France and the Black Atlantic, with which they interface through
the media. While only a minority of immigrant-born youths are gang
members, there is among them a much wider identification with the
transnational nexus at the heart of gang cultures. (139) Comment
on the ways in which the characters in the film incorporate these
transnational codes and elements of both black Atlantic and white
American culture transmitted through the US-dominated mass media
that set them apart from both the cultural heritage of their parents
and a specifically French cultural mold.
3. HATE is set in the so-called banlieues, suburban districts
of large cities such as Paris or Lyon that have become synonymous
with areas of acute social disadvantage--poverty, high unemployment,
and immigrant minority or disenfranchised groups who have been excluded
from French society. Describe the ways in which the film represents
the banlieue in which the three main characters find themselves
trapped. How does the mise-en-scene of the film (setting, lighting,
camera angles, framing etc.) suggest the alienation of the banlieue's
inhabitants?
4. Analyze the role of mass media, specifically television and
advertising in the representation and self-perception of the disadvantaged
ethnic and immigrant youths in the film Comment on specific scenes
from the film that address this issue.
5. Olivier Mongin in Esprit has written that the film is about
"the impossibility of developing an identity, personal or collective."
Do you agree with this statement? If so, why? If not, present your
reasons for an alternative reading. Comment on the ending of the
film.
6. Analyze the different manifestations of violence in the film,
and comment on how the various characters respond to and deal with
daily violence and police brutality in their lives.
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