Here we get interviews with many of the participants in the production of the film, including, but not limited to, Kassovitz and actors Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé, and Saïd Taghmaoui. It’s not the most in-depth interview but it offers a look at the director’s style and his influences (though I guess that aspect should be obvious to most.)Ĭriterion next includes an 83-minute documentary originally made by Studio Canal entitled Ten Years of “La haine”. and here she talks about what drew her to his style and this film, and even points out her favourite moments. Foster played a big role in getting Kassovitz’s film released in the U.S. Jodie Foster next offers a 15-minute introduction to the film. But again it’s an engaging enough director track. It’s a fine track but ultimately most of this material is covered throughout the rest of the supplements in the set, so whether one wishes to listen to it is completely up to them. Kassovitz sounds a bit laid back but manages to keep the track engaging as he talks primarily about the production, particularly the origin of it, the casting, the shoot, influences on his style, and the reception of the film. It looks as though everything has made it over from Criterion’s impressive 2-disc DVD to this Blu-ray, starting with an audio commentary (in English) by Kassovitz, recorded exclusively for Criterion for that 2007 release. For example they replaced the name “Asterix” with the name “Snoopy”. (Also of note is that the film’s subtitles have been corrected for this edition: The DVD changed many names in the film to make it easier for American audiences to better understand the context of a conversation. The film’s original 2.0 track, which was included on the DVD, is not found here.
#La haine review upgrade
It’s one weakness is that the lower channel isn’t used as effectively as it could have been but otherwise it’s a nice upgrade over the DVD’s audio. Dialogue is clear and articulate and sound quality is exceptional with no damage or noise presents. The film offers a rather surprising and robust experience, making ample use of the surround channels, whether it be the sounds of people in the streets, objects whizzing by, traffic, trains, and many other sound effects, all of which sound to move naturally between the speakers. The Blu-ray presents a DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround track that sounds to have the same mix as the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track on the DVD but does actually sound a bit sharper and clearer in its presentation.
In all it doesn’t offer a substantial improvement over the DVD since the DVD was already pretty good to begin with, but it does still look very good on the format. The source has some minor blemishes but is incredibly clean otherwise. I could detect some noise in places but it’s not overly distracting. Past all this the transfer still manages to deliver some strong black levels, and grain is present, though I’ve seen film grain rendered better.
Likewise some minor halos, and what appears to be slight edge-enhancement, could also be inherent in the source because of the manipulation, but it can be hard to say for sure. There are moments of softness here and there but I suspect it’s an issue with the source and not necessarily a problem with the digital transfer. Generally speaking the transfer is more than pleasing, delivering a fairly if not overly sharp and crisp image. The film was originally shot in colour and then processed during development to create the black and white/monochrome finished product, and it’s possible that any limitation the image has is related to this. The DVD looked fine and this Blu-ray offers a nice little upgrade over it but I can’t say it’s substantial. I’m pretty sure this is the same high-definition transfer that was the basis for the DVD, supervised by Kassovitz. Criterion upgrades their DVD edition of Mathieu Kassovitz’s La haine to Blu-ray, presenting the film in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on a dual-layer disc.