La Haine (Blu-ray)

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 Pariss outskirts. Aimlessly passing their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Kounde), and Sad (Sad Taghmaoui)a Jew, an African, and an Arabgive human faces to Frances immigrant populations, their bristling resentment at their marginalization slowly simmering until it reaches a climactic boiling point. A work of tough beauty, "La haine" is a landmark of contemporary French cinema and a gripping reflection of its countrys ongoing identity crisis.