The young men of the banlieue are clad in sportswear and workwear that split the difference between stylish and practical: Nike, Carhartt, Everlast, Reebok, Lacoste. They breakdance, pass spliffs, shoot the shit in front of graffitied walls, arrange themselves in tableaus that could have been ripped from the linear notes of Nas’ ‘Illmatic’, the Queensbridge housing projects swapped for the outskirts of Paris.
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La Haine is bookended by a short parable about first a man, then a whole society, falling off a skyscraper. “On his way down as he passed each floor he kept saying to reassure himself: so far, so good. So far, so good. So far, so good. But how you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you land.” The longer one drops, the more time they have to question whether there is a ground after all, even in which direction they are travelling. Spin something fast enough and it looks as though it is standing still.
Wray/La Haine, 2020
THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT 
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