The same people who lived in housing projects then – almost all of them immigrants, as also portrayed in the movie – still live there, maybe not they themselves, but the same social class, the next generation.
Nothing has changed, at least not for the better. 25 years after La Haine was made, have things changed in those estates? To commemorate the 25 year anniversary of La Haine’s première at the Cannes Film Festival on May 27, 1995, Marc Duret took time out of his busy schedule to talk with us about the cult movie and his current projects. And last but not least he also often serves on the Emmy Awards jury in New York.
#La haine characters series
He is frequently Fabrice Hourlier’s go-to actor for roles in docu-fiction series such as Napoleon, and he still plays and directs theatre.
#La haine characters tv
Other than on the big screen, he has played in international TV productions – the conniving Cardinal Briconnet in Tom Fontana’s Borgia, or the devious French minister Joseph Duverney in Outlander – and he occasionally guests on British and American TV. He started his career in the late 1980s, soon starring in all three French movies that have made it to the celluloid Olymp – Le Grand Bleu, Nikita, and La Haine. Notre-Dame is perfectly inhabited by Nice-born actor Marc Duret, who has been a perennial and intrinsic part of the French and international film and theatre landscape for over thirty years. Nervous and cynical, he stands for cops that all too easily are drunk with their perceived power which, however, often masks deep-rooted fears and doubts. Inspector Notre Dame represents the other side of the law. They are not big-time criminals but certainly up to no good. They become unlikely friends in an environment where cultures collide and cohabitation is uneasy. Saïd the Maghrebinian (Saïd Taghmaoui) is the jokester among them but hardly the sharpest tool in the shed, and Hubert (Hubert Koundé) is an Afro-French boxer who despite dabbling in drugs is the most mature among them. Vinz (played by Vincent Cassel) from a Jewish background is unstable, borderline schizophrenic. It follows a day in the lives of three youths from immigrant families living in the underprivileged Parisian “ housing projects” in the suburbs. Written and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz in 1995, La Haine (“ Hate”) is one of the top French cinematic references the world over, instantly recognisable by these few lines and the iconic images associated with them.
The end of this all too realistic tragic human story is left up to imagination and to debate. “ What’s important is not the fall…”, the voice continues, “ …it’s the landing.” Who of the two pulled the trigger first, we will never know. The camera catches the terrified eyes of Saïd who looks on in horror as a gunshot rings out. And as it falls, it keeps telling itself, ‘so far so good…so far so good’…” These ominous lines, spoken in the off as an overwrought inspector Notre Dame faces off with Hubert, the black kid from the dirt-poor Parisian suburbs angered by the killing of his friend at the cop’s hands that he had just witnessed, each holding a gun to the other’s head. It is one of most iconic scene in French movie history: “ This is the story of a society on its way down. Actor Marc Duret, who played one of the pivotal characters in the French cult movie, reflects on the film and the current state of society, and shares what he is up to these days
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