La Haine

When it comes down to it, La Haine is a film about contrasts. There is the projects and there is Paris. There are the cops and there are the kids who grew up poor. Contrast as an element of shot composition is also very noticeable because of the decision to film the movie in black and white, which makes the often used low key lighting stand out a lot. The point of all this contrast is to show how cut off from the projects are from what most people view as normal society. The employment of little didactic stories sheds light on the greater situation of someone born in the projects. Said, Vinz, and Hubert are all running along the train trying to pull up their pants and freezing to death. They are falling and saying "so far so good".
The directors intention in the film was very much to humanize the plight of people who's actions may seem only violent and destructive to the outside world. He attempts (and succeeds) in sharing their humorous moments with the audience, as well as their darker ones. The main theme of the story which is summed up by Hubert's line "Hate breeds Hate", is most relevant in his own story. Hubert is the most mild mannered of the three protagonists and actively expresses a want to leave the projects for a better life, but in the final scene when a less than friendly cop shoots Vinz by accident he just can't take it any more and snaps. The director wanted to portray the troubles that disenfranchised people go through on a day to day basis to the world. And when I say the world I mean the world. This film was meant for international viewing. The most obvious example of this is that Said's coke snorting and Russian roulette playing friend is named by the subtitles as "Snoopy", a internationally known lovable American cartoon character, but it is painfully obvious to anyone who speaks french that the characters actually are addressing him as "Asterix", a popular French cartoon character. The director really wanted to tell as many people as he could about this subset of culture that is hated merely because people perceive that it hates them.