LA Haine, City of God Comparison

City of God is a 2002 Brazilian crime drama film co-directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund. La Haine is a 1995 French black-and-white drama/suspense film written, co-edited, and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz.

They both follow disillusioned youth with the main themes following the crime and violence that are ever present in their lives, they both feature an ethnically diverse cast and portray the stories of Racism they face as a result of who they are. City of God follows the story of Rocket and his life in the city of god, he is a non-violent character but brushes with Violence daily due to where he grows up, The City of God is a slum and has almost third world conditions, this parallels to the suburbs of Paris where, although they are poor, they still have adequate housing and running water.

This shows that despite France being an established first world country it still can fall victim to the same issues as a newly industrialised nation as brazil. The violent nature of both these films highlight that their situation is a large influence to this, as it gang culture seems to be a part of life where they group up. Particularly in City of God, Rocket comes into contact with crime no matter what he does. As a result of this he is used by the photography company to capture the violence, not thinking about his safety and what might happen to him as a result of capturing this underreported and more personal life within the city of god.

The cinematography in both films is great, LA Haine is shot in Black and white, a deliberate choice by the director to show their drab concreate environment and the dreariness of their situation. This contrast with City of God where it is bright and colourful despite the dower colour pallet of the Favela, it acts as a Juxtaposition the colourful aesthetic makes the dark subject matter look even more out of place and is a clever device to use.

Although both films are foreign language films the performances within them are exceptional, the lack of understanding the languages does not lessen the impact and there is frequent use of close ups to show the emotions on character’s faces, which makes the lack of understandable dialogue less of an issue.