A morning in some social housing ghetto in a suburb of Paris. After a night of violence between the police and a group of young people, a state of emergency prevails. A 16-year-old is on the verge of death after being brutally beaten during interrogation. The teenagers Hubert, Said and Vinz are on the front line in the fight against the police. It’s a day that will change her life.
“Hate hit like a bomb. The banlieue of the cosmopolitan city of Paris and its protagonists were suddenly there – in black and white, Jews, Muslims and blacks united, angry but irresistibly cool. These youngsters wouldn’t disappear anymore, that did hate clear to the penultimate day before yesterday. Here came the boys’ violence against the structural violence. And French cinema, this world heritage site of the first order, suddenly seemed to be under attack from an unexpected quarter – and enriched. Even the cultural references have been turned upside down. The film referred to representations of pop, hip-hop and mass culture and quoted ‘Les inconnus’, the comedy trio of the time, with television skits that have become legendary. The aestheticized TV pictures of street fights, to which Bob Marley sings, also left no one completely indifferent who liked to go to a demo themselves. ‘Jusqu’ici tout va bien’ and Vincent Cassel became a star.” Cinema Xenix Zurich
