City of God Vs La Haine

An analysis of both 'City Of God' and 'La Haine'

La Haine:
Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, starring Vincent Cassel, Hubert Kounde and Said Taghmaoui.
Budget of roughly 2,590,000 euros with a box office of $309,811.
Inspired by a real instance of police brutality in France, where one of Kassovitz' childhood friends died in police custody. La Haine won an award for best director at the Cannes film festival and gained critical acclaim. It went on to win several awards at a number of other festivals. It caused quite a stir among the police force, as many deemed it to be a biased, hate-letter about them. Mathieu agrees with this statement. However it received amazing reviews from both critics and the overall public. Perhaps this can be partially attributed to the cast and crew actually living in poverty during filming on an estate in which they bonded with the community.

City of God:
Directed by Fernando Meirelles, starring Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino and Matheus Nachtergaele. Budget of $3,300,000 with a box office of $7,563,397.

Based on a real life story of a photographer living in the slums of Brazil and growing up in a war-torn environment. It won several awards and critics loved it, gaining many different spots on top 10 and top 100 lists. However, it was not without critique. Many claimed it was romanticising violence. It was released in it's own country in 2002 and worldwide in 2003. The director and co-director went on to film a series and another movie by the name 'City of Men' in 2007 which shared many of the same actor's, as well as the same setting. Not nearly as controversial as La Haine.In La Haine, the opening sequence is simply a multitude of shots showing riots in the city of Paris over the track 'Burnin and lootin'. It's a much more simple opening than City Of God. La Haine's choice to use a popular Reggae track, however appropriate it may be, differs from City Of God as well. La Haine seems to be deviating from it's culture and trying to separate itself from the rest of French cinema, which was often romantic and almost dystopian at the time. However, City Of God is set in Brazil, in a shanty town by the name 'City Of God'. It's opening sequence does feature cultural music and tries to solidify itself more in Brazillian culture, perhaps to say it is a part of the country, whether or not the upper class wants to address it or not, whereas La Haine is a pure hate letter to the police and the upper class.

La Haine is also in black and white, meaning it relies a lot more on pure lighting to show it's effects rather than colour. In City of God, we see that as it's narrative becomes much more darker, as does the colours. It becomes much more bleak and grey as the City of God descends into a maddened war zone. Perhaps this reflects Rocket's fondness for his childhood in comparison to his teenage years. The colours are much warmer in his childhood, and seem quite desolate, almost peaceful. But as Rocket grows up, and the City of God becomes more hectic with crime, it becomes much more urbanized. The grey concrete and bleak shanties show a hopelessness for most of the city's residents. It makes it all the more sweet when Rocket escapes and makes a life for himself. In quite the contrast, we have La Haine, which features tragedy from start to finish. Of course, the colours remain bleak throughout the entire film to reflect this. The bold and solid black and white tone disconnects the film from the other romantisized french cinema. The lighting also becomes darker as the film goes on, due to it's narrative being confined to a day. This leads to many of the scenes being at night, however it appears that the night scenes are some of the few scenes where there's little conflict. Maybe this serves to justify why many 'undesirable' youths stay out at night. There's not as many upper class people or policeman to judge and berate them. It could also serve as a lead up to the ending, which isn't nearly as happy as City of God's ending.

In terms of narrative, City of God is quite unique in that it follows one protagonist, yet it tells the tales of many other characters through their eyes as well. La Haine is much simpler to follow with only 3 protagonists, with Vinz being arguably the most focused on. La Haine is also often criticized as painting police in far too bad a light, accusing them of being too abusive of their power. City of God shows a nearly opposite perspective, where the police are much too lenient with their power, leaving shanty towns to their own affairs. The time frame of both narratives is also vastly different. City of God covers a whole decade of conflict, meanwhile La Haine is but a day.

City of God is a lot less symbolic of it's violence. Guns are thrown around like essentials to people. Children roaming the streets with pistols. Yet in La Haine, guns are few and far between and have an almighty presence. It's viewed as having power, masculinity and respect in any situation. A transfer of power from the policeman to Vinz and the observation of how he uses said power is a massive plot point. We've already established the police have little presence in City of God, which means the gangs reign supreme and so there is no assigned power. The prop of a gun isn't even noteworthy.

In conclusion, the key difference I found between the two movies is the pacing. Because La Haine takes place in a day compared to the City of God, which covers a decade, of course it's much slower paced. Many of the conflicts in La Haine fail to reach a considerable outcome and so it implies that these arguments are simply daily life. In City of God, people die all the time. It's far more rare to witness a conflict that doesn't result in a considerable outcome, but in a place like that where the norm is gang violence, it's not even seen as considerable. If Vinz' death scene had been placed in City of God, the audience would probably not have reacted. The impact would be severely diminished, written off as another pointless death. This also shows a difference in scale, and while they cover the same issues, the themes of poverty, violence and conflict is just much more solidified in City of God. Perhaps due to it being a third world country, or perhaps due to it being a biography.