Andrew Von Lawrence Presents: An Inner Fruit Salad

A fruit salad buried deep within:

You see kids, this is what happens when you watch too many Terrence Malick movies. All that mumbly existential voiceover you heard while watching The Thin Red Line? It has forever changed your way of thinking about war stories and film in general, and you will probably have to go through a pseudo-philosophic period in your own filmmaking process, in order to "exercise" the Malick-demons from your brain. The last shot in this video specifically shows how one should go about separating flesh and consciousness from each other, creating an infinite loop in time and space, allowing you to see past the materialistic and superficial standards of postmodern society. This ability will come in very handy when trying to differentiate between right and wrong in tough ethical dilemmas, because if the passing of time has taught us anything, it is that nothing is so bad that it is not good for anything. Barf!

T. Malick and his teachings: 

All joking aside though, I threw this small video together in less time than it takes to make a cup of coffee, strictly because I wanted to try out my new voice recording software (The program is called Audacity, in case you are interested). As you probably have guessed already, I have been watching a lot of Terrence Malick films as of late (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Tree of Life and The Thin Red Line), and having been very impressed by almost all of them, it felt very natural to try and rip off some of his narration techniques. I really dig the way in which he combines his poetic visual style with good old fashioned storytelling, and even though this is more apparent in his earlier work than in films such as The Tree of Life and To the Wonder, I still feel that these films can teach me a lot about visual storytelling and narrative structure as a whole. 

You can find this video as well as a few others on my Youtube channel.

La Haine (1995) - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

Source: http://www.bonjourtristesse.net/2011/10/la-haine-1995.html

Director: Maihieu Kassovitz

Screenwriter: Maihieu Kassovitz

Stars: Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé, Saïd Taghmaoui
Traile link
IMDb page

Trapped on the bottom:

La Haine, or "Hate" as it is called in English, is a French movie about three rebellious teenagers from the Parisian slums, who find themselves caught in the middle of a violent struggle between the police and an angry mob of young, hopeless working class outcasts. The film is shot in black and white in order to capture the bleak and colorless reality that these individuals face on a daily basis, and as we follow Vinz, Hubert and Saïd while they work their way through the tough-as-concrete slums that they call "home", we begin to understand why they are as restless and as resentful towards authorities as they are. 

Old men in new clothes:

In terms of narrative structure and story arch , La Haine is not a very innovative or groundbreaking film. We have all heard the stories about social outcast and bad working class neighborhoods told many times before, but in my opinion, none of them manages to capture the harsh realities of life in the slums and everything that comes with it quite as accurately as La Haine. The tediousness and repetitiveness that the main characters in this film experience is so well visualized and executed that predictable endings and worn out plot devices go completely out of the window, and the way in which the movie takes old clichés and reinvents them is quite extraordinary in my opinion. Director Maihieu Kassovitz, who grew up in the projects himself, does a very good job of making his audience feel as if they are a part of actual events that are taking place right now, giving the film a strong sense of reality and authenticity, which ultimately is the film's most powerful attribute.  

Simmering anger:

The Italian film Gomorra from 2008 is another film that manages to tell a familiar story abut life in the slums in a very riveting and convincing fashion, and just like in La Haine, the anger and the hopelessness that boils just beneath the concrete roofs of the packed apartment complexes is strangely fascinating and scary at the same time. Both films manage to turn the tediousness and bleakness of their characters' situations into a powerful dramatic attribute, and in case of La Haine, the bad decisions and irrational behavior of the main characters becomes even more tragic and relatable as direct result thereof. 

Restlessness personified: 

Especially the character of Vinz, who is portrayed fantastically by Vincent Cassel, has a lot of built up frustration and anger that he has no idea what to do with. This restlessness is depicted by the way in which he keeps threatening to kill a cop with the gun he finds early on in the movie, a gun which he has no idea how to handle or where to keep on his body. He knows that he is angry and he knows that he wants to do something to improve his situation, but in spite of his numerous boats and his cocky attitude, he has absolutely no idea how to handle the situation or his newly found weapon. His conflicted mind and the journey he goes on was very interesting to me, and when he speaks the line "I feel like an ant floating around in an endless multiverse", we see just how lonely and lost he actually feels, in spite of his tough physical appearance. 

A haze of hate:

Whether you see it as a a piece of social commentary or simply as a work of cinematic entertainment, La Haine has a lot to offer in my opinion, and its depiction of frustration and hate is very impressive and likely one of the most powerful and convincing ones I have seen. At one point in the movie, Vinz ask Hubert how he can tell the difference between right and wrong so easily. Hubert answers by saying that "hate breeds hate", and in a way, this simple statement is the key to understanding everything the movie tries to say about society and its flaws. Just as there are good cops and bad cops in the city, the slums contain violent and hateful people as well as goodhearted, honest and well meaning people, who want nothing more than to escape the hell that they are living in. Sometimes when we are not able to differentiate between good and bad due to the prejudice that comes with social gaps and ethnical differences, all we have left is a boiling grey blur of erupting hate, violence and anger, which I am sure is exactly what Maihieu Kassovitz wanted to say with this film. La Haine is a good, though provoking and very well made movie, and as time goes by, I find myself falling more and more in love with it.