La Haine (1995)

La Haine (1995) is a French crime drama directed by Mathieu Kassovitz

following three young adults, Vinz, Hubert and Said from a deprived and
impoverished area in the suburbs of Paris for 24 hours living under
discrimination from the police. Kassovitz highlights underclass individuals,
especially young people from immigrant, are affected by systemic racism and
harassment by the police due to the government neglecting deprived areas
in France resulting in young people rebelling because there is simply
nothing to do. La Haine is a tribute to Malik Oussekine, a young black man,
who was beaten to death by French police. This caused protest and riots in
France due to police brutality in deprived areas.

Rooftop scene
In this scene, there’s an asynchronous sound when the boy yells “we’ve got
visitors, over here” tracking Vinz and other people is movement towards the
boy who is at the edge of the roof. The camera quickly towards from the boy
tracking a high angle down on the mayor. This shot makes the mayor look
petite and weak as the group of males yell negative words at him. This may
be because the mayor neglects deprived areas like this one and they feel as
if he’s not doing enough to aid them or the area. France in the 80s and 90s
has singled out certain areas (mainly low class) that require special
attention. This may be due to a lot of residents living in these areas have
backgrounds from African francophone countries (Algeria, Congo, Morocco,
Senegal etc) and experience high levels of xenophobia and racism. This
neglection from the governments lead to high rates of unemployment, gangs,
violence and crime.

From that scene, there’s another tracking shot following Vinz with a medium
shot showing his surroundings of the place being a sociable for young
people to socialise and interact with each other without police always being
there. While the camera is tracking Vinz to a large crowd around the police
showing a two-shot relationship between a young man and a police officer.
The police officer tells the young men to get off the roof. Again, this shows
the high levels of police patrol in this area even when residents are
socialising with each other it becomes a “threat”. This leads to an increased
number of crimes since there not allowed to socials in their own area.