European Cinema Focus: 'La Haine' & 'Das Leben der Anderen'

European cinema is a cauldron of eclectic, unique story-telling, from creative, flamboyant flair to gritty realism. Here, I will discuss two discrete yet similar films. One a period piece and the other set in the time of its making, both, though, have become historically treasured pieces of story-telling. La Haine (Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995) and Das Leben der Anderen (Dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006) are the focus for this essay, discussing and assessing the filmic devices used to bring/add meaning to their respective stories and drawing a few comparisons along the way.

Director Matthew Kassovitz said that his motivation to tell a story true to life was inspired by real events that were transpiring around him. He said that the story was to be about a group of boys, one of them unaware that that day was to be his last (Mathieu Kassovitz, 2006).

A film with an incredibly unique characteristic due to its ‘pick-and-mix' variety of styles, La Haine is a movie not so easily categorised into any genre. Simultaneously, it is a project so ingrained with its socio-political messages that, often when it is brought up in discussion, its relevance to current events seems to be the driving force of the conversation.

“That justified all that trouble all over France for three weeks.”

“If you disrespect people don't expect respect back.”

One filmic device I want to examine is this movie’s structure. How and why does La Haine tell its story the way that it does? A film with an incredibly unique characteristic due to its ‘pick-and-mix' variety of styles, La Haine is a movie not so easily categorised into any genre. Simultaneously, it is a project so ingrained with its socio-political messages that, often when it is brought up in discussion, its relevance to current events seems to be the driving force of the conversation.

What impresses me more than anything about this movie is how, within a ninety-five-minute time frame, the film succeeds in formulating a constant rising tension amidst a plot constructed to show us nothing. What we end up seeing is, essentially, just a day in the life of these characters. With no ‘major’ events for ninety per-cent of the film, La Haine is almost a plotless movie, but it is one that utilises a very intentional narrative structure.

First of all, let's analyse the plots of La Haine. How does it conduct its series of events? Regardless of medium, the most common method that our characters are pushed along through the plot is by some manner of ‘cause-and-effect;’ You develop a connected chronology as the result of a single incident directly influencing the next. This system gives the film a sense of flow and progression. Yet, in La Haine, causes and effects are so loosely tethered to one another that one could say that each event is directly influencing the next. This is because La Haine adapts to a different kind of narrative structure. In fact, it's eloquently summed up in the film's opening lines and repeated throughout the movie:

“How you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you land.” (La Haine, 1995)

Through this approach of building a story, to hinge on the pinnacle of the last crucial scene, is a story that becomes defined by that one single moment.

Bulgarian essayist, Tzvetan Todorov, composed the narrative theory of the equilibrium. It states that narratives begin in a state of equilibrium. Everything in the world is as it should be: a state of unity. An event will then occur that disrupts its unity, destroying the equilibrium. The goal then, from that moment to the narrative resolution, is to establish a new equilibrium (Tzvetan Todorov, 1960) However, when applying Todorov's theory to La Haine, it merely accentuates the unconventional structure of the movie because the ending of the film isn't about creating a new-found unity; we aren't working towards a conclusion, we're working towards shattering the equilibrium. Vinz is killed by sheer chance and that one brief moment renders everything before it completely meaningless; we don't end with a resolution; we end with another disruption of order. Unity becomes eradicated once more, and if we were falling up to this point, then this is the landing. But plotlines have been defined by a single moment before, so for the impact of such a cataclysmic event in any story, to have the urgency it needs, you need to create something leading up to this moment. Tension.

When Todorov’s Narrative Theory is applied Das Leben der Anderen, however, it makes sense that the film follows its conventions. The new equilibrium is reflective of the new that emerged from decades of oppression. The irony of former Stasi officer Wiesler becoming a mailman, delivering information rather than manipulating it, in his new-found freedom completes the arc of his character, humanising a man whose job was within a brutal organisation. This filmic device of structure conveys a subtle optimism in people and how people can change for the better, which, of course, would be hard to ignore within the context of German history.

Tension in cinema can be heavily derived from time. The most obvious way to gain tension from time is to show that there is a consequence to not achieving your goal before a specific moment. With La Haine, this begins with a very simple premise. There are two plot devices that balance one another out. Vinz has found a gun and the local youth from the high rises is in a coma. Here the tension is established by how much time can pass before one of these events offsets the other. Will the youth last the night or will Vinz's violent tendencies seep into reality? This is a more simplistic way of looking at the situation, but the real filmmaking finesse emerges through the films management of the passage of time.

On the other hand, Das Leben der Anderen uses both time and layers of dramatic irony to create tension. How its story progresses as characters (particularly Wiesler) learn more about one another. Tension through time is not as overtly recognised, like in La Haine, instead through acquisition of knowledge; characters gradually uncovering one another’s secrets the audience are placed in a rather voyeuristic position where we see a situation dangerously evolve. A story where nobody is safe. The way this tension is created by the film-makers is a marvellous way of emphasising the oppression in Eastern Germany and bringing empathy for audiences who may not have experienced such troubles.

La Haine feeds as a premise that becomes etched in the back of our minds and lingers like a dark cloud over the following events. So, with that information we need to understand that we are falling closer to the conclusion of this as tension will be built through emphasising that time is passing us by. Sergio Leone was known for this technique and achieved it through his incredibly long shots. He built anticipation by drawing attention to his film’s temporal element. So how does La Haine do this? It shows us. Simple: a timestamp.

It may seem like a gimmick to some; however, I would argue the way in which these timestamps are implemented heavily influence our perception of the events. A substantial portion of the film's attention is on inconsequential moments only for them to be interrupted by showing us how much time has passed. These timestamps are just an alternative method to act as that reminder that time is passing by. They therefore highlight the lack of meaning in scenes as instead of our characters working towards preventing a worst-case scenario, all they did was waste precious time. The timestamps not only strengthen time’s conceptual aspects as well as instil a sense of constant progression, but they have a transformative effect to give scenes that seemed insignificant a new sense of urgency. Without that brief reminder, the scene loses that urgency. Tension is created through showing a consequence to not completing the goal, and that by stressing the passage of time, we show that we're moving closer to that possibility. La Haine also builds tension through foreshadowing the dramatic ending with the large reliance on smash-cuts, contrasting edits of incredibly high volume, with incredibly low volume.

The time stamps are even emphasised by the ticking clock we hear. A genius piece of sound design, insinuating that the situation is a bomb ready to explode at any moment. All these elements serve to show us that something dramatic is about to happen.

But the most obvious aspects of La Haine’s structure, noticeable on a first viewing, is that it's a film of two halves. Now, with everything else that has been mentioned about this film’s unique structure, you might think that this would be damaging to the film's pacing, but it isn't. In fact, the reasoning behind this is a more thematic one.

We learn that the cultural labyrinth of the suburbs still maintains a sense of unity. This is the first half of the film; yet, in the second half of the film, Paris has no discernible identity. In fact, in the first shot of Paris, any distinguishable identity it has disappears before our very eyes with an iconic use of the dolly-zoom. And the only landmark representative of where the characters are (the Eiffel Tower) does exactly the same, with its lights shutting off, fading it into the blackness of night. The first half is shot in wider angles with very highly composed shots, denoting a sense of structure, whereas, in the city, it shot mainly on telephoto lenses, warping the background and presents much more fragmented staging. There's an increased sense of unease, and it's clear that the culture of these characters has made them unwelcome here.

The end result for La Haine is a film that gradually crawls to the eruption of its finale and whose two-part structure emphasises a conflict based on cultural backgrounds and that technique of foreground versus background may be the key to understanding this movie. I think there's one shot that sums up that exact notion in La Haine’s story:

Here, even though Hubert is in the foreground, the dominating factor is the conversation occurring in the background. This is because it's our surroundings that have the biggest influence on us. Our lives are shaped by that which is around us, and the same way that our characters are moulded by the multitude of cultures around them. The plot of the movie undergoes the same experience; the entire plot was building up to a single moment that we had no control over. It was decided by an external force; and the film’s structure was showing us this from the very beginning through a very cohesive jigsaw.

Are we the ones in control of our own lives? La Haine would suggest that our journeys become meaningless because, if we don't act to prevent our situation, time will run out and it will be decided for us. All it takes is for one person’s actions to destroy everything. All the progress we've made is lost, and it takes us right back to the beginning.

Are we the ones in control of our own lives? Furthermore, in Das Leben der Anderen, are we the ones responsible for the lives of others? If we don’t act for a fellow person’s sake, do we forsake them or does interference lead to complication and harm for all involved? All it takes is one person’s actions to destroy everything. All it can take is for one person’s actions to save everything, even themselves. Das Leben der Anderen deals in the latter, a counterpoint of a more optimistic view.

Bibliography:

Tzvetan Todorov (1969). Structural Analysis of Narrative, Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1345003 (Accessed: 18/12/2021)

Kaleem Aftab, KA (2020) Mathieu Kassovitz on La Haine: “I made the movie because kids die” Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/mathieu-kassovitz-la-haine-legacy (Accessed: 20/12/2021)

Steph Green, SG (2020) The sound and the fury: rap, reggae and resistance in La Haine Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/la-haine-dj-cut-killer-krs-one-edith-piaf-rap-reggae-resistance (Accessed: 20/12/2021)

Sharma, S. and Sharma, A. (2000) ‘`So Far So Good...’: La Haine and the Poetics of the Everyday’, Theory, Culture & Society, 17(3), pp. 103–116.

Filmography:

La Haine (1995). Director: Mathieu Kassovitz

Das Leben der Anderen (2006). Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck