La Haine

This film is so good the professor wasted two full lecture sessions to make us watch it. (Ok so its a bit of a mickey mouse class)

1995 Black and white French film by the director Mathieu Kassovitz. The black and white thing really isn't off putting. It features Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé, Saïd Taghmaoui in the leading roles as three teens in the ghetto of Paris. The film came out during a period of social unrest in France, and deals with the social fracture that locational disconnect i.e. the ghetto, has resulted in.

Summary/Spoilers:
Following a riot in the banlieues (outskirt ghettos) of Paris, there is much unrest in the neighborhood. The film centers on one day in the life of three friends, Said, Vinz, and Hubert. Their home boy Abdel is in the hospital from injuries during the riot. Vinz, out to make a name for himself, has picked up a revolver. He swears he's going to kill a policeman (or pig, as they are commonly referred to in the film) if Abdel dies. The three go on epic ghetto adventures throughout the day, including smoking copious amounts of weed, stealing hot dogs, shoplifting, beating people up, getting beat up, and smoking more weed, not necessarily in that order.  Tensions run high between the three as Hubert thinks Vinz's a idiot for packing heat and venerating violence.
Due to a clusterfuck involving a coke fiend and security guards that were more like thugs, our heroes get trapped in the city for the night. Some time during the night Abdel dies, and Vinz makes up his mind to kill 'a pig'. But during a scuffle, with his gun pressed to the face of a skinhead, Vinz's heart of gold shines through and he doesn't pull the trigger. The morning comes and the three make it back to the ghetto. Vinz hands his gun over to Hubert. Just when all is well and everyone's got a smile on their face, a plainclothes police pulls up and starts hassling Vinz with his gun.
At this point its obvious shit's gona go down, because the film's called hatred, not redemption. Sure enough, the douche police's butterfingers slip and BANG, there goes Vinz's face. The film blacks out as a bang is heard, leaving it to the imagination who else died under the gun.


Thoughts:
Everyone in the room (my classmates) all gasped with me at the same time. Since Black Swan came out recently, just when everyone was thinking 'black and white foreign film about prejudice, yawn', Vincent Cassel's face pops up, and people snap wide awake.

This face.

The film's fantastic to begin with, but there are some beautiful cinematic moments as extra toppings.
One is the dolly zoom effect when the trio stands on a pedestrian crossing bridge:


Gave me serious vertigo, especially since it was big screen viewing.

Another is the badass mix by an anonymous DJ in the film sampling Edith Piaf's "Non Je ne Regrette Rien" ringing through the hood. Classmates went bonkers at this one. whisperOMGInceptionwhisper:



A surreal moment where Vinz hallucinates la vache (cow).

An even more surreal scene with a random little man in the restroom.

And its little nuggets like these that propel this film into the 'great' category. The film's gritty but around every corner there is easy humor, showing the intelligence behind the mindless hoodlum image. It conveys its morals without being over the top, Too bad the director went on to make the very unimpressive Gothika.



TL;DR:
An Arab, a black and a Jew was chilling out maxin' relaxin' all cool, and much cussing, drugs, and violence commences. You'll get the message, I promise. Great fucking film. Seriously.

'The world is  y ours'

If you want to watch the whole film, you can try here:

La Haine

No idea if there are subtitles though.

The War Zone

I searched high and low for this movie, and it was worth it. I saw it quite a while ago, and am doing this from memory and some internet research, but I remember it well enough.

The War Zone is a 1999 'drama' film written by Alexander Stuart. Like a lot of good movies, its based on a book, also written by Alexander Stuart. It's the first film of Actor turned Director Tim Roth (I have to admit I came across this due to my rabid obsession of him). It employs two untrained and unknown teens for the lead roles, and boasts the talents of Tilda Swinton and Ray Winstone.

Summary/Spoilers:

An English family moves from the city to the country. The teenage son, who's maladjusted to begin with, is emotionally troubled by this. The film begins with the family driving to the hospital with the mother in labor. They crash on the way and the mother gives birth to a baby girl. So while their mother is in the hospital, the boy witnesses incestuous acts between his teenage sister and his father. His sister doesn't even flinch when he tells her. She sluts around town for a bit just to show her bro how little she cares, but of course she's all torn inside (take that as you will). The son stumbles upon his dad and his sister doing it some more in the backyard bunker. Like a good son, he tattle-tells to his mom, which just throws everything into megafuck mode. There's a confrontation during which the father never admits to it. Finally the guy loses his shit and just rams a cleaver in his old man.

Thoughts:

The War Zone is famous for its depiction of incest, and rightfully so. If there is one word I use to describe this film, its BLUNT. The language, the landscape, everything about it was stark, dark and raw consistently throughout. The family's bodies are exposed so comfortably, making the rape scenes all the more harrowing. The topic itself is unpalatable enough, yet Tim Roth holds nothing back, and depicts the act in its full intensity. Pretty ballsy for a first film, but that's why I love the man.

The acting is superb. Tilda Swinton is an excellent actress. She actually did give birth recently when she filmed the movie, and the guts she must have to expose herself like that on camera. I have only respect for her. Ray Winstone played the father perfectly. A villain, for sure, but he also genuinely cares about his family. I don't hate the guy. I get the same vibe from Lolita's Humbert Humbert. Aside from their sexual deviancy, they are good people, just victims of their own nature. The two kids are superb as well, seeing as neither acted on screen before. The sister, especially, gave a sense of a bratish teen pretending to comprehend and accept more than she actually can.

Like its subject matter, the film is painful and brutal, but its so honest, and rare in its honesty. I love it for that.

TL;DR:

Movie about incest between Father and Daughter. Graphic & angsty. Recommended.

Confrontation scene broke my heart:

Here's a link to the movie. I have no idea how long it'll be up since its Youtube.

Warm up post.

1st Post!

So, a little introduction.

Subject of blog:

Films, series and occasionally book reviews. They will often be Sci-fi, slasher, suspense, gore. My tastes just tend to run that way. Otherwise they'll generally be good films, or really horrible ones, those deserve a mention too.

Reason for blog:

So this is a blog to keep track of the films, series and maybe books that I intake. I'm a procrastinator by default, and my preferred method is often the consumption of one of those three mediums. Keeping a blog of them would make sure I have something to show for all this time wasted. If nothing else this blog will make me write more.