ADAMA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Racist War On Terror targets innocent teenage girl

In anticipation of the upcoming 2015 Toronto Hot Docs International Festival of Documentary Cinema's Canadian premiere of David Felix Sutcliffe's powerful Sundance-Award-Winning feature (T)error which he co-directed with Lyric R. Cabral, The Film Corner's Countdown to Hot Docs continues with my review of Adama. Broadcast in 2011 via PBS, Sutcliffe's first film is a provocative, rage-inducing portrait of America's racist anti-terror policies perpetrated upon the innocent.

Adama (2011)
Dir. David Felix Sutcliffe

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In March of 2005, a 16-year-old honours high-school student living in Harlem was arrested and incarcerated (kidnapped and wrongfully jailed) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (America's Schutzstaffel, more commonly known as the S.S.) under the spurious, unfounded suspicion of training with Al-Qaeda as a terrorist suicide bomber.

After being dragged from her home, family and in the middle of a successful school year (that was scuttled by this immoral action), the FBI decided they had nothing on her, so the American Government, in its racist policies masquerading as a war on terror on home turf, instead placed her under a strict curfew (replete with ankle bracelet to monitor her comings and goings) and charged her with being an illegal immigrant, in spite of the fact that she had been living in America since the age of 5 years old.

Her friend, also arrested, wasn't so lucky. She was immediately deported to Africa. Her father, was even more unlucky. He was imprisoned for 16 months and then deported to Africa. Without a sole bread-winner, the teenage daughter had to give up school completely to earn money for her mother and younger siblings. She was then flung into the harrowing experience of never knowing if she would be deported or not.

Welcome to America's War on Terror against the innocent and driven by racist racial profiling of the most heinous, egregious kind. The aforementioned events represent the tip of the iceberg that is the story of the innocent teenage girl of the film's title Adama. This terse, powerful 60-minute documentary was produced for PBS in 2011 and directed with both economy and urgency by David Felix Sutcliffe. It presents a world of Kafkaesque horror and plays out like a direct cinema thriller steeped in humanity.

We experience the terror of this young lady as she is dragged through endless immigration hearings over a period of months, all of them inconclusive and adding to the fear and paranoia of both Adama and her family. There's one set piece in particular that is on-the-edge of the seat scary as she races back to her home, fearing she'll be late for the ankle-monitored curfew (the result of which could mean re-incarceration). There's also the very real threat of other petty bureaucratic agencies investigating the lack of money in the household and considering the horrendous solution of breaking the family apart into the foster-care system. One of the most deeply moving sequences involves Adama's brother pleading to America to leave his innocent sister alone and to let his family continue as they have to live freely in America and to experience a better life.

Sutcliffe has fashioned a sickening, alarming portrait of America's delusional and just-plain mean-spirited war against people of colour in the name of protecting the country. It's not a pretty picture and for much of the film's running time, you will be outraged, frustrated and thrust into Adama's point of view.

What America has been doing and continues to do is appalling. Adama is a film that puts a very human face to the country's own acts of psychological terrorism. And Canadians, no need to be smug, our country has been racial profiling for a long time - see my review of the powerful Hot Docs entry from last year, Amar Wala's The Secret Trial 5. And if what you see in that film and Adama is scary, just wait until Chancellor (Canadian Prime Minister) Stephen Harper enacts his grotesque anti-terror legislation which will plunge the country beyond America's bilious attack on human rights all in the name of Der Führer Harper's belief that "Jihadist terrorism is not a future possibility, it is a present reality.”

See Adama, see Sutcliffe's new documentary feature (T)error, see The Secret Trial 5. The real terrorists are our own governments. We, the people, are supposedly the government. Not so. We're mere fodder for the attack upon anyone even vaguely outside the Status Quo.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** Four Stars

Adama is available to be viewed for FREE online at Sutcliffe's Vimeo page HERE. (T)error will play at the 2015 Hot Docs (The Film Corner review coming soon).

COME BACK, AFRICA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Astonishing Milestone Film&Video BluRay

Can you imagine making a film about Apartheid - in secret, in South Africa - while Nelson Mandela is, at the very same time, on trial for treason? Such a film was made and if one is able to declare that shooting a film can be an act of bravery, then legendary filmmaker Lionel Rogosin might be cinema's greatest hero of all. In fact, the risks taken by all those involved in creating the film Come Back, Africa were so fraught with danger that even now, it's impossible to look at it without gasping with awe and horror in equal measure. Created over a period of two years, Rogosin's film remains the most important film ever made to depict the horrendous regime of Apartheid. Available on the visionary Milestone Film and Video label - such a must-own item that if you were to buy only one movie this year, this would have to be it.

Miriam Makeba: one of South Africa's greatest female vocalists had never been heard outside her country until Lionel Rogosin managed to get her out to attend the film's World Premiere at the Venice International Film Festival.

Come Back, Africa (1959) *****
Dir. Lionel Rogosin, Starring: Zacharia Mgabi, Vinah Bendile, Miriam Makeba, Myrtle Berman

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"...the greatest documentary filmmaker of all time." - John Cassavetes

"...a film of terrible beauty, of the ongoing life it captured and of the spirit embodied by Rogosin and his fellow artists.” - Martin Scorsese on Lionel Rogosin's Come Back, Africa

Rogosin's footage was shot in secret.
A Child Labourer in the Diamond Mines
of South Africa under the Apartheid Regime.

Nobody made movies like Lionel Rogosin. His first feature film On the Bowery broke every rule in the book and in so doing, created a whole new set of rules that inspired and defined filmmaking for over half a century including the likes of John Cassavetes, John Schlesinger, Karel Reizs, Richard Lester and Martin Scorsese (not to mention a myriad of documentary directors).

Rogosin's brilliant approach - an amalgam of Flaherty, Italian Neo-Realism and his own unique method - resulted in what could be called docudrama, though even that word seems too inconsequential to describe how he made movies.

After seeing Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (AKA The Bicycle Thief), Rogosin gave up his career as an engineer. He had to make movies - movies that captured the reality of the times and most of all, to give voice to the disenfranchised through the art of cinema.

On The Bowery (a link to my review is at the end of this piece) examined the harrowing Post-War existence of skid-row alcoholics on the Bowery of Manhattan. Come Back, Africa would employ his style even further to examine the lives of Black Africans in South Africa under the horrendous regime of Apartheid. Travelling to South Africa with his pregnant wife, Rogosin spent six months getting to know people - both Black and White - who could generously provide an opportunity for him to observe what life was like under Apartheid. (Rogosin took a similar approach with On the Bowery, spending months on skid-row.)

Lionel Rogosin on-set: making reality.

Based on people he met, locations he viewed, numerous shocking (as well as inspiring and positive) incidents he witnessed and generally just soaking up everything he could, Rogosin put together a treatment of what shape his film would take and eventually collaborated with two Black journalists/activists Lewis Nkosi and William Modisane on a screenplay.

Casting the film with non-actors who were as close in reality to the kinds of people written as "characters" (real domestics, diamond mine workers, unskilled general labourers, etc.) and continually bamboozling the White South African officials into thinking he was producing a travelogue, Rogosin began to shoot the film proper. Casting the White African characters was a bit trickier, but as he'd connected with numerous people who secretly despised Apartheid, he was able to get those actors as well.

What we experience is simply and utterly astonishing. There is no other film quite as extraordinarily detailed in the depiction of life under Apartheid - in the very country, amongst the actual locations, with real people and during the horrendous early years of a regime in which segregation and racism were actually legislated (and where men like Mandela were paying dearly for their human rights stances). In addition to shooting all over Johannesburg, Rogosin was afforded the amazing opportunity to shoot in the Black townships. In fact, much of these scenes are set in Sophiatown which was actually being levelled during the shooting to eventually build a swanky White-Only suburb.

ZACHARIAH'S DEVASTATION

The tale told is a simple one, but it reflects the actual events and experiences all Blacks lived through in South Africa. This "simple" story is our conduit into the very lives of the people during this time. We see a man forced to leave his wife and kids behind in their country village and work in a diamond mine. With wages withheld (and not very good to begin with), he's forced to ask his wife to sell some of their livestock so he can actually have money to live on. We experience what life is like as a domestic servant with a racist White housewife - screaming at the man constantly, using the most ugly racial epithets one can imagine. We're party to Black workers being fired by racists, endless demands by police for paperwork and passes, the "White-Only" and "Black-Only" segregation, squalid living conditions, brutal back-breaking work, child labour, raids and arrests upon those without the proper paperwork and even the rape and murder of a woman whose husband is stupidly detained by officials and not home to protect his wife.

There are, of course, wonderful things - the vibrancy and music of the people in the townships away from their oppressors and amongst each other, the late night gatherings of intelligent political discussion mixed with spirits, music and even dancing and yes, we even meet one White person who is a genuine, caring human being (though sadly and apologetically forced to do something he'd rather not do - yes, White people could be detained, beaten, jailed and/or charged with treason).

And here was Lionel Rogosin, his pregnant wife and a handful of European crew members living in this madhouse called South Africa and actually making a film that would secretly expose life under Apartheid for the rest of the world to see - working collaboratively with a local cast and crew who were risking EVERYTHING to make this film a reality. The shooting days began at 5AM and often didn't end until 11PM - everyday for well over a month, constantly shifting locales and working in secret. Every couple of days, Rogosin would make mad dashes to the airport to put his footage on airplanes to New York and one night, on a particularly treacherous road, was rammed head-on by another car. Miraculously, his wife didn't miscarry and their first child was born in South Africa.

I've watched this film several times since I received the Blu-Ray. During every single viewing I'm stunned. My jaw drops, my heart soars and my tears flow. All I will do now is reiterate:

Nobody, but nobody made films like Lionel Rogosin.

The art of cinema and indeed, the world, owes him a huge debt of gratitude. Come Back, Africa is a bonafide masterpiece - it's one of the greatest films of all-time.

Come Back, Africa is part of the Milestone Film and Video "Milestone Cinematheque" series and Volume II of the ongoing collection entitled "The Films of Lionel Rogosin" (Volume I is the aforementioned On The Bowery). This is an extraordinary two-disc Blu-Ray set, chock-full of valuable extra feature. Disc 1 includes the full feature film Come Back, Africa, restored by the Cineteca del Comune di Bologna and gorgeously transferred from the 2K restoration. The feature includes SDH subtitles and a wonderful Martin Scorsese Introduction. As if this wasn't enough, we get the outstanding Michael Rogosin/Lloyd Ross 64-minute documentary entitled An American in Sophiatown: The making of Come Back, Africa, an astonishing 20-minute radio interview with Lionel Rogosin discussing Come Back, Africa and the movie's theatrical trailer. Disc Two is just as extraordinary and I'll be reviewing it in separate article.

In the meantime, feel free to read my original review of Rogosin's On the Bowery by clicking HERE and if you do not own either of the Milestone Rogosin films, feel free to click on the Amazon links (options available for Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and Amazon.UK) below and order straight from here. Ordering from this site allows for modest returns that assist with the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Come Back, Africa - HERE!

In Canada - BUY Come Back, Africa HERE, eh!

In the UNITED KINGDOM - BUY Come Back, Africa - HERE!

FRUITVALE STATION - Review By Greg Klymkiw - A Day in the Life of a Human Being: The strength, the beauty, the power, the goodness and yes, the sorrow of a dream cut short by one act of senseless violence.

Fruitvale Station (2013) *****
Dir. Ryan Coogler
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Ariana Neal, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray, Ahna O'Reilly

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Fruitvale Station proved to me that I'm not crazy about trying to see movies without knowing about them (to the extent it's even possible in our hype-saturated world). Even as I write this after being alternately battered and caressed by one of the most moving and devastating contemporary films currently on screen, I still have not read any interviews, puff pieces or reviews nor seen any of the trailers. I know I'd have still loved this movie, but going in with no prior information yielded an extremely pure and raw movie-going experience.

The movie is infused with considerable gravity and hammers home the fact that we all live in a Police State within our supposedly democratic North American existence. There can be no denying or escaping this fact. Witness the appalling verdict in the recent trial involving the gated-community-dwelling vigilante or, if you must, a "concerned citizen" infused, no-doubt, with redneck values who, whilst carrying a loaded, ready-to-fire gun, fatally shot the innocent Trayvon Martin. Witness peaceful demonstrations against corporate greed that are either ignored by the bought-and-paid-for mainstream media and/or met with the violence of police thugs. Even upon the supposedly complacent Canadian landscape we all witnessed a prominent politician going scotfree after running down a cyclist and we recently shuddered while watching the cel phone footage of a trigger-happy Toronto cop emptying his revolver into a clearly disturbed young man who stood ALONE in an EMPTY streetcar, armed with only a 3-inch boxcutter - a young man crying for help, not bullets.

The movie humanizes the disenfranchised in ways that allow us to see pieces of ourselves in those less blessed and acknowledges how we're all equal in the eyes of the Universe. Sadly, it also firmly establishes just how alive and well racism is in North America - especially in the seemingly endless and repeated statistics proving that cops continue to commit racially motivated (and/or class-related) murder - no matter how slanted and/or fudged the stats are to protect the guilty (our protectors, lawmakers, lawgivers, corporate rulers and politicians).

Finally, Fruitvale Station proves just how sacred an artistic medium cinema is and how it can provide a lot of entertainment value AND social commentary - without robots and Godzilla-like monsters pulverizing each other or mindless superhero antics for no other reason than to profit from both propaganda and violence.

Thankfully that horrendous title card "based on a true story" does not open Fruitvale Station, but instead we get a shaky, murky cel phone video wherein a group of young men are rousted by the police on a subway platform. The film then jumps to a point that's clearly from the past and we begin a powerful and moving - almost Neo-realist tale - of a young man who's made more than his fair share of mistakes during the first 22 years of his life, but then experiences an epiphanous moment in the early morning in which he knows what path he wants and needs to take.

The simplicity of the tale is what yields such remarkable emotional and thematic layers. Following this young man (Michael B. Jordan) as he begins to fulfill his potential as a life partner to the woman he loves (Melonie Diaz), a father to his sprightly daughter (Ariana Neal) and a son worthy of the love bestowed upon him by his Mother (Octavia Spencer) is, at least in recent memory, quite unparalleled. What we see is a turning point in his life amidst all the things that society throws in the way to thwart this gigantic change in his life.

Fruitvale Station is tremendously moving and inspiring as it depicts one day in his life. Set on New Year's Eve and also the night of his Mom's birthday we see him prepare for the party but also face the conflicts and hardships of poverty. As the film inches ever closer to the New Year celebrations, we sense both joy and portent.

By the picture's end, I indeed realized I knew about the actual "true story" - the senseless murder of Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old African-American who, on New Year's Day 2009 was beaten, handcuffed, then shot by racist cops (Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray).

Director Ryan Coogler doesn't pull any punches and there isn't a second of this movie that feels false, forced or contrived. If, by picture's end, you aren't quaking in your seat - wracked with shock and sobs - I feel sorry for you.

Most of all, I feel sorry for humanity. Fruitvale Station is proof positive of life's infinite mystery, wonder, joy and sorrow. We are all better for the fact that this picture exists, but mostly, that it sheds light on how one man's existence (and indeed all humanity's) touched and continues to touch the lives of all others.

"Fruitvale Station" is in theatrical release via E-One.

THE DEVIL'S LAIR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICK

The Devil's Lair (2013) ****
Dir. Riaan Hendricks

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is one grim, gritty and nerve-wracking gangster picture, but like the best of them, it's got heart.

The picture's emotional punch emanates from its central character, Braaim, a lean, lanky, almost classically handsome late-forty-to-fifty-something with a whole lot of salt and a dash or two of pepper in his hair. Though he prefers loose shirts and sweats, his wife, a caring, understanding and delightfully full-figured gal (and Mom to his three kids) tries to make sure he's spruced up suitably for important engagements. Their relationship is loving - she never nags, but always throws in gentle reminders and he clearly strives to be a devoted family man, though ultimately, his work has a habit of getting in the way.

He's a wise elder member and boss of NTK (Nice To Kill), a gang specializing in the sale of narcotics. Most gangstas die at half his age, but Braain's got staying power, not to mention plenty of the requisite hard-ass meanness and moxie to handle anything, including s vicious turf war that's being waged against his territory.

Though he wants to leave the neighbourhood and the "business" to make a better life for his family, he's bound by the code of his gang and can't break free until the right people have been whacked. (Makes perfect sense to me.) He wants NTK to be strong and secure without him and ultimately, for peace between gangs to be restored and thus making his dreams of halcyon days come true.

Braaim's wife is alternately resigned to the choice she made in knowingly marrying a thug (albeit a handsome and charming one), but she stills harbours a need for him to at least slightly curtail his activities so he can spend more time with his family. It's a pipe dream she holds onto - dangling and extending an impending divorce over his head - hoping this will change his ways.

This, in spite of many displays of his tenderness, just doesn't seem to be in the cards.

Ultimately, our hero is a been-there-done-that kind of guy. His eyes have seen everything, his spirit has been infused with hatred (when necessary) and he's done what he's had to do to provide leadership and maintain the gang. He has even served a (surprisingly light) seven-year sentence in prison for murder. He's justifiably concerned that he can't ever murder again for fear of having the book thrown at him.

Most of all, Braain hopes his children will never have to follow in his footsteps. He acknowledges that he knows what he knows from growing up in a family where his own father packaged drugs, planned killings and sported a wide variety of guns. He consumed the sins of his father, but desperately hopes this will not be the fate of his own children.

These are not the mean streets of way uptown in NYC or in South Central L.A. Braain and his family live in the flats of Cape Town - a community created by the Apartheid government in the 50s to separate living space between white and black. Though people of colour now have freedom, the chasm between rich and poor is wider than before and most Cape Town Blacks live in the flats.

As well, this gangster picture is not a drama. You might have guessed that one already since it's playing at Hot Docs, but it's so expertly shot and edited (by its clearly gifted director Hendricks), with the right attention paid to narrative detail and character, that the movie feels like Mean Streets on the Cape Town Flats.

There are moments that are simply unforgettable - gunshots echoing in the streets, the gang sucking back crystal meth and planning murder, long talks into the night about shattered dreams, a child playing with a dead cat's corpse in the street, other children playing with toy guns - striking poses of bravado in honour of their fathers and among many other indelible moments, contrasting sequences between Braain and his baby girl where he's like any tender Dad doting on his little one and others where he holds her in his arms as he conducts "business".

These are real people, real locations and real events. There's a touch of Lionel Rogosin to the proceedings, but Hendricks goes way beyond staging improvised scenes based on tales crafted during the shoot itself which is why you're always on the edge of your seat. He's a filmmaker with cinema hard-wired into his genetic code and he makes it seems so easy for us to alternately cringe and weep.

And yet, it was clearly anything but easy to make.

This is a movie I shall not soon forget. Neither will you.

"The Devil's Lair" is playing at Hot Docs 2013. For tickets and showtimes, visit the Hot Docs website HERE.

LA HAINE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The classic 1995 depiction of life in the banlieues of Paris is now available on a magnificent Blu-Ray from the Criterion Collection. The movie is as vital now as it ever was and the package includes a cornucopia of fabulous features to enhance your experience. This is a must-see, must-own work of art!

La Haine (1995) dir. Mathieu Kassovitz

Starring: Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé, Saïd Taghmaoui

****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

La Haine was theatrically released 17 years ago, but feels like it could have been made yesterday. Mathieu Kassovitz's rage-fuelled portrait of violence and poverty in the housing projects of Paris within the above-ground-catacomb-like banlieues, pulsates with the raw energy of late-60s-early-70s political thrillers by the likes of Costa-Gavras, but is also charged with the same slice-of-life energy the young Martin Scorsese brought to bear in Who's That Knocking At My Door and Mean Streets.

On the surface, we have the simple tale of three best friends living in the aforementioned slums who have all been affected in different ways by a massive riot kicked off when the police, in a racially-motivated act of thuggery, beat a young man who now lies in a coma and possibly near death. Kassovitz follows Vinz (Cassel), Saïd (Taghoumi) and Hubert (Koundé), a Jew, an Arab and French-African respectively as they encounter a series of prejudicial harassments by the police as they semi-aimlessly attempt to get through a day just after the banlieues have been besieged by the carnage.

The young man who was murdered was a close pal of Vinz and when he finds a .44 Magnum lost by a cop during the urban mêlée, he hopes to gain neighbourhood "respect" by vowing to kill a cop in retaliation. Hubert is a sleek, powerful, though gentle boxer who's managed to make a place for himself in the world by owning a gym, but overnight he's become a member of the disenfranchised once again as his pride and joy has been gutted by a riot-enflamed fire. Saïd longs to escape life in the slums, but also feels powerless to truly leave them and his immediate aim is to collect a debt from a mid-level drug kingpin.

Kassovitz, though he shot in colour, exposes and filters all his shots for black and white, which the film was eventually released on. Though it's not "true" monochrome, it comes damn close and most astoundingly, though he has chosen to shoot handheld, there's not a single shot that isn't superbly composed. Even more thrilling is that it's seldom handheld in the whirly-cam-herky-jerky miasma so popular in low budget films and most annoyingly, in mega-budgeted contemporary blockbusters, usually from directors with no eye who attempt to be cool and "cinematic" (and sadly, manage to pull the wool over the many eyes of both public and critics).

The blocking and use of actual locations is masterly - all the more astounding as Kassovitz was in his late-20s when he made this film. Within the magnificent compositions, the movements of those in-frame and the camera itself are always rooted in both dramatic beats and emotion - no fakery or fancy-schmancy here. Kassovitz has nothing to prove other than to expose the lives of the people who live in the banlieues in a vivid, vital fashion.

Even more stunning is how the youthful helmer handles a sequence where the trio "journey" to Paris. Reminiscent, though not "borrowed" from The Warriors, Walter Hill's amazing 70s kaleidoscope of never-never-Land gang violence, the point of view feels so true to the experience of the characters - allowing us to feel their own wonder and amazement at being transported into the urban bustle of Gay Paree. The various neighbourhoods in Hill's film felt like distinctively different worlds and not in the same city at all - so too is this captured by Kassovitz in La Haine.

In the banlieues, we are so immersed in an immediacy and reality, it feels like Kassovitz was born and raised there (which he wasn't, though he and his team spent a considerable amount of time living there prior to shooting).

His entire cast, including many non-actors from the banlieues is always first-rate, but the revelation upon the film's initial release and astounding even now is the controlled intensity of the brilliant Vincent Cassel (most notably and recently seen as the equally intense ballet impresario in Aronofsky's Black Swan).

Head-on, Cassel is a triangle-domed seething dragon - his enormous crown holding globes for eyes - watery worlds casting roiling seas of hatred upon us and all who dare look upon him. In profile, he's like a bald eagle crossed with a sort of punk extra-terrestrial je ne sais quoi who would, if he had any, eat his newborn straight from the stirrup-spread loins of mummy - making sure to savour as much of the glistening blood and globs of afterbirth with Mephistophelian relish.

His idol is none other than Travis Bickle, DeNiro's psychotic cabbie in Scorsese's Taxi Driver. His recreations of the "Are you talking to me?" mirror sequence chill to the bone. Many filmmakers have, over the years, referenced Scorsese, but save for Boogie Nights, most of these sequences feel more like homage than story and/or character beats. Here again, it's rooted completely in the world of the film. Someone like Vinz - not only in the 90s, but frankly in any age beyond the 70s would, to varying degrees choose someone like Travis Bickle to idolize.

This, finally brings us to the truly staggering genius and power of La Haine proper and its vitality to both the generation it represents and subsequent generations. The movie on every level is timeless and I suspect its importance to both film art and society at large will continue to live and breathe for years, if not decades to come.

The gap between rich and poor as presented by Kassovitz feels no different than what faces the world today and in fact, has become wider and will frighteningly continue to do so. At any stage I suspect his great picture will always feel modern - his classical style adorned with the flourish of cinéma vérité and its shattering portrait of have-nots within a police state makes it then, now and forever a universal work of art.

Some have suggested (always in positive terms) that the film's ending is ambiguous. If you watch the film with open eyes, you'll see this is absolutely not true. A pair of eyes close in the final frames, but in so doing reflect the sad truth for many of us - that no matter what our dreams might be in this world of shit we live in, what we see is what we get.

La Haine sees what we all see, or what we choose not to see.

The picture is definitely headed for masterpiece status.

"La Haine" is currently available in a brand new and phenomenally sumptuous visual rendering on Blu-Ray from the virtually untouchable Criterion Collection. It's accompanied by a number of interesting features which I urge you to watch AFTER you see the movie (even if you HAVE seen the movie before). It's best to let the picture work its magic upon you before diving into the goodies provided. One of my favourites is actually an introductory message from actor-director Jodie Foster who so loved the film that she bankrolled and masterminded its journey to North American audiences in the 90s. (It did extremely well, grossing about $300,000 which 17 years ago was pretty astounding for a black and white French film of such dark subject matter.)

Foster's perceptions are on the money, but it's also wonderful to experience her clear and genuine love for the movie. It's exciting and kind of infectious. And not to belittle her words or intelligence, but it seems like she harbours a mad crush on Kassovitz. The transfer was supervised and the entire edition is one of Criterion's Director-Approved editions. Other wonderful features include a commentary track, a solid documentary on the film, a featurette on the banlieue, production footage, deleted and extended scenes all accompanied by Kassovitz rendering after-comments, the usual array of photos and trailers, plus a terrific booklet, the highlight of which is an appreciation by Costa-Gavras himself.

What's really odd is that the movie was never released on DVD and only available on VHS. Happily, Criterion remedied this situation a couple of years ago and now, we have an even superior home format to see the movie on. This movie, however, is NOT worth renting, downloading, streaming, netflixing or any other inferior method of delivery. JUST BUY IT!!!