On the next morning, the Arab Said (Saïd Taghmaoui) summons his Jewish friend Vinz (Vincent Cassel) and they meet the black boxer Hubert (Hubert Koundé) in the slum where they live. When the youth Abdel goes to the hospital in coma due to a battering he receives at the police station, there are riots in the outskirts of Paris and one policeman loses his revolver. Reviewed by claudio_carvalho 8 / 10 Life in Black and White A gritty, brutal one, that some may call bleak. Instead of cancelling them though, how could we help them? The movie does not suggest solutions in that regard. You feel for them and yet it is very likely you will hate some of their actions. The three friends, different but yet with a core feeling of being sidelined, of not being heard, of being minimalized, is quite intriguing. Vincent Cassel is not spoofing De Niro, he makes it a short but powerful moment in the movie. But that makes it better, many missquote movies or make them their own. The latter is not quoted correctly if the french translation of what is being said is to be believed. There are cultural references to movies for exmaple, be it Scarface "World is yours", Taxi Driver "talking to me" to name but two. they are what society and circumstances made them. The youth, the characters we follow are prisoners.
The perfomances are quite stunning and while we do have the youth we concentrate on, there are some diverse views on how to act or where to go. Now the movie does not concentrate on Black Lives Matter (the movement did not exist back then), but focuses on police brutality, a seemlingless inescapable path french youth in certain areas was facing (probably still are facing). Especially with what is going on in America (once again), with the killing of George Floyd.
This was released 25 years ago, but still feels relevant.
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