La Haine, or How I Let Her Down

Recommendations are like prejudices; everyone has them. Whenever I tell people that I'm a movie guy, they always come back with some random movie recommendation, and they're always shocked when I haven't seen it; like I am supposed to have seen everything. Moviewatching, to me, is a lifelong journey. If I watch everything now, what will I discover when I'm older? You don't see me flabbergasted because no one has ever watched I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang.

My list of movie recommendations is longer than a Victor Hugo novel. It's partially my fault, as I usually have movies that I've discovered on my own that I want to watch and, because of my selfishness, those get priority over what others suggest. Lately, I've realized that this is one of my great faults.

In my first year of university, I studied theatre. For my very first assignment in acting class, I was paired with an antisocial extrovert. It was clear from the get-go that the theatre was an ideal environment for her. She was filterless, hilarious, beautiful.

I can't remember the assignment exactly. We were either given a scene or we had to make up a scene. It was like a non-improv version of Bus Stop. Most drama kids know that one. Regardless, we had our work cut out for us.

We met up frequently to rehearse. This being our first week in the first year of university, our work ethic was nil. We spent most of these meetings hanging out, chatting, and listening to music. She had a horrible taste in music. Despite both of us loving hip-hop, our preferences in the genre rarely aligned. While I was listening to Take Care for the hundredth time, she was blasting Das Racist. I didn't mind; at least not enough to say anything. Then, as now, I liked to discover new art through others. Plus, I was happy make friends at this early juncture of a new life chapter. While she talked, I listened. She had a true motor mouth, with monologues jumping from deep personal revelations to practising her goofy English accent to gossiping about our classmates. Luckily, her anecdotes were anything but dull.

Somewhere during our infinite conversations, we ended up on the topic of movies and television. I rattled off my typical favourites like The Godfather and The Wire. That's when she told me that her favourite movie was La Haine. When I told her that I'd neither seen it nor heard of it, she was shocked. She said I had to watch this film immediately. I promised I would.

It took me 14 years to watch it. I make no excuses for myself.

After we finished our scene together, our friendship continued. Throughout university, I spent countless hours with this girl; recording music, eating sushi, driving around, and laughing till we cried. Still, I never watched her recommendation.

I couldn't forget this movie, either. Its reputation has only grown since it first premiered at Cannes in 1995 where director Mathieu Kassovitz won the Best Director prize. As social media took over the internet in the 2010s, clips of La Haine kept appearing before me and each one was a reminder of my unkept promise. It looked like an awesome film; exactly the type that I would love. Still, I didn't watch it. My stubbornness confounds me.

After university, we didn't see each other as much, although we tried to make the effort. Back home, we only lived a couple towns away from each other. We had similar problems, like how to stay creative and make money in the real world. While I had dreams of making something of myself in Vancouver, her dreams called her to the big big city. The one with the lights and the stars and the most opportunities — Los Angeles. Her move didn't happen overnight. It turns out, it can take a long time to relocate yourself permanently, but I never doubted her, for she was persistent and crazy enough to make it work.

A few years ago, she made the move official. Since she's lived in L.A., I naturally don't see her anymore. I still have her on socials, and we occasionally meet up when she comes back to see her family. She's found some success in her dream, doing some modelling work, recording a number of songs, refining her sound, performing DJ sets, and making a whole new batch of friends. She even found work as a story editor on a Canadian television show — an accolade that has made me shamefully envious.

As the years after university pass, this is how most of my friendships have gone. People move, dynamics change, and I just don't see these friends as much as I'd like to, if at all. I still have all the time in the world for this one, but space and time means that our weekly hangouts are a thing of the past; maybe for now, maybe forever. Still, that movie recommendation lingered in my mind.

Now, La Haine is back in the news. This year's Cannes (May 13-24) will mark 30 years since this movie premiered. To celebrate the anniversary, Criterion has released a 4K Blu-Ray edition to commemorate the movie. This edition includes a new digital master, an introduction from Jodie Foster, a documentary, a featurette, and more. With this timely anniversary, this new job at Peliplat, and memories of yesterday haunting my psyche, I decided that it was time to watch La Haine.

Watching the movie was bittersweet. I'm not surprised that I loved it. I have an affinity for edgy movies, France, and hip-hop. This movie is an intersection of all that. Its themes of social injustice and police brutality are as relevant today as ever. The cinematography and staging go crazy, and the acting, especially that of Vincent Cassel, is a prime example of gritty authenticity. I think I almost certainly appreciated it today more than I would have if I'd watched it all those years ago. However, the film still flooded my consciousness with memories of time spent and lost.

I couldn't help but feel like I let her down. I had missed the opportunity for us to share another collective experience. By choosing to sit on my hands and wait until we were practically out of each others' lives, I ended up making a connection when it was no longer relevant. Maybe I'm romanticizing the past, but we could have had conversations about this movie and made references to it. I could have understood her a bit more.

After all, this is a wild pick for a favourite movie. La Haine literally translates to "The Hate," although I've seen much more hateful movies than this. Still, it's a heavy, masculine-centric movie with a lot of deep themes, which are understated in the plot. It follows three disenfranchised young men in Paris who spend the day after a night riot getting in and out of trouble, while fighting against prejudice and oppression, and picking up a gun along the way.

Did this movie remind her of her two brothers? Had one of them recommended it to her? What did she connect with? Was her favourite scene also the one in the art gallery? These are elements, conversations, questions that I missed during our years of tight friendship, because I couldn't find 100 minutes in my vacant schedule to watch a wonderful movie.

I know this might seem like a trivial thing, but it's not. Take The Wire, for example. One of my best friends, who I also made in first-year university, loves that show as much as I do. I'd say our relationship is 50% Wire references. We've debated every possible Wire-related list: best episode, best season, worst character, best line, best death, underrated character, our dream detail; we go on ad nauseam. Could La Haine have held the same weight in this relationship? Probably not, but there's no denying that a shared love for a movie can create a deeper connection. It's what makes following up on recommendations so important.

That's the lesson I learned from this years-long debacle created entirely within my own head. I can't watch every recommendation that I receive. The cycle takes a little bit of personal picking and choosing, but completely ignoring recommendations is not the way. Time snowballs and melts. I could have watched La Haine when I was 17 and I would have had another way to connect with my friend. Instead, I spent 14 years considering it, observing it from a distance, and stubbornly taking my time to finally press play. Here's to hoping that I don't make that mistake again.

If you'd like to watch La Haine, the full movie is available on the Internet Archive at the following URL: https://archive.org/details/la-haine-1995_202211

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