La Haine / Hate

I was thinking about la Haine recently, after watching Attack the Block. Some of the reviews for the British film compared it to the French one in terms of social satire, and I actually could see some flashes of La Haine in Attack the Block, especially when a hilarious one liner was dropped into the middle of an incredibly tense situation,  and when Brewis, the Middle Class white guy lost in the “Block” is listening to some French hip-hop, it felt like some sort of “hommage”( see here, 35 seconds in for the original scene and here - the video justly titled “La Haine tribute”).

La Haine has often been called a masterpiece since its release in 1995. It put Mathieu Kassovitz on the national (French) scene and set him up as one to watch. It is a great film: shot in black and white, is rather intense, but as I mentioned earlier with Attack the Block, there are some tremendously funny lines.  La Haine is always fascinating to watch, no matter how many times you have seen the film before: you get to spend a day in the life of Vinz, Hubert and Said, 3 guys who live in a poor Paris suburb that is rioting as one of its residents, Abdel, has been hospitalised after having been brutalised by the police. The whole estate is waiting to see if Abdel makes it alive. If he doesn’t, a police officer will be killed as retribution. It does not help that a gun has supposedly been lost...

I should probably go into more detail and describe how relevant this film was 15 years ago with regards to racial tensions in the French suburbs, or talk about the cinematography, but lots has been written already... (A few examples here, here, here or here and that was just on the first page of Google)

So I won’t reinvent the wheel and I will just focus on the title of the film.

La Haine. While it is usually referred to its original French title (I have no problem with that), it also has been translated to Hate.

While it is correct that the feeling of haine is hate, it is fairly inaccurate to translate it like that in this context.
La haine is, in this instance, a slang expression. It is often used in “j’ai la haine”, which expresses deep anger. The best equivalent is rage. You know, when you can feel your insides boiling and want to hit something (or someone)?

Yes, rage in French is rage, and interestingly, it is also the word for rabies, but in this context, the rage is the feeling you are looking for. Slang, eh? Always trick the best of us.

I always accuse the French of being lazy translators but can reciprocate to the English speaking ones for a change. 

I shall carry on being full of compliments for the French today, as they accurately translated The Rage: Carrie 2 in 1999 to Carrie 2 - La haine. 

I am hopeful :)