Mathieu Kassovitz took the film world by storm with La Haine, a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France, specifically the low income banlieue districts on the outskirts of Paris. Aimlessly passing their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Koundé), and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) - a Jew, an African, and an Arab - give human faces to France’s immigrant populations. Their bristling resentment at their marginalization slowly simmers until it reachesa climactic boiling point. A work of tough beauty,La Haine is a landmark of contemporary Frenchcinema and a gripping reflection of its country’songoing identity crisis.