Words and Pictures: Adrian Hextall / MindHex Media
‘La Haine’ [‘Hatred’]; is a 1995 French social thriller film written, co-edited, and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. It stars a young Vincent Cassel in probably his breakout role, Hubert Koundé and Saïd Taghmaoui. The film chronicles 24 hours in the lives of the three friends who all come from poor neighbourhoods in the suburbs of Paris. For a film that is 30 years old, the black and white classic depicts scenarios that apply as easily today as they did then. The frustration of poverty, the tensions between different ethnic groups and how they co-exist in cramped high rise estates. The military like approach of the police, needing to enforce order but not understanding how to deal with families and people who have to fight for everything they get in life. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Over the years, Asian Dub Foundation have celebrated ‘La Haine’ with supporting performances of a reimagined live soundtrack set. Their incredible live shows bring on stage a reinterpretation of the original soundtrack played by the band while the film plays in the background, for a unique and powerful journey between music and film.
Steve Chandra Savale, Aniruddha (Dr) Das and Brian Fairbairn are respectively guitar, bass and drums of Asian Dub Foundation. The band has always been politically and socially involved and on their most-critically acclaimed album, ‘Enemy of the Enemy’, there’s a song inspired by the film ‘La Haine’, which reflects how deep their commitment is to this project.
If you’ve never seen the film (I had not) then it’s a stark, unsettling insight into the lives of the three boys who carry with them bravado and courage to help deal with whatever injustices the world and the Paris suburbs throw at them. Hubert, a promising boxer lost the gym he trains at in the riots, Vinz is full of swagger and misplaced courage as a result of managing to grab a police officers pistol the night before in the riots and Said.. the more immature of the three, likes to poke to the bear and see what he can get away with yet is probably the least violent of them all.
As they progressed through 24 hours waiting on news of Abdel, a friend hospitalised when in police custody the night before, Asian Dub Foundation held our attention with some of the subtlest and also crescendo fuelled musical passages.
To avoid overshadowing the film and for the film to not negate the music, a fine line had to be balanced. Thankfully, ADF have done this several times before and they know what works. The jaw dropping moments as they should, warranted moments of silence from the band, the scenes where energy, suspense and excitement were also handled perfectly with the band seemingly able to raise heart rates in the auditorium as easily as the film did.
The climax of the film, which involved me picking my jaw up off the floor (having never seen it before) also allowed the lights to come up and the band to come forward to be appreciated by almost 2,000 fans.
Moments like this are rare. This was one of those “I was there” moments and I’m so so glad I was.
For more info: https://asiandubfoundation.bandcamp.com/