Gun Society; Guns & the Lives They Leave Holes In; Handguns: Made for Killing, Not for Kids; La Haine (Hate); Wasted! Guns, Teens, Lives & Dreams

"I lost my son to a gun," says Carmen Jackson of East Harlem. The statistics are depressing: every day 15 kids are killed by guns; every day some 160,000 children and young adults will carry a gun to school; guns have now become the number one cause of death of young people in America. The widespread proliferation of handguns in America and the concomitant rise in murder and accidental deaths has spawned concern among educators, politicians and the lay public alike. Four new documentaries and a French feature film focus on the problems of handguns, particularly when the hands belong to kids.La Haine (Hate), a film which "jolted" Rolling Stone and "rocked" Jodie Foster, picked up a Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival for its artsy black & white look at a day in the lives of a multicultural trio of angry young Parisian men. The tension stems from the fact that during clashes between kids and the police, an officer lost a handgun, and one of the loose cannon kids is now carrying it. Picking their noses and scratching their butts (artfully, of course), the rebels without cause wander the streets of Paris engaged in small talk and drug deals, while the gun owner looks for a reason to use his newfound power. While the ending does ‘jolt' and ‘rock' audience expectations, the 90 minutes leading up to the last five is banal, and purposefully so at that. That today's youth sometimes lead empty lives is not a particularly fresh insight. An optional purchase. Aud: C, P. [DVD/Blu-ray Review—May 22, 2012—Criterion, 97 min., in French w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: 2 discs, $39.95; Blu-ray: $39.95—Making its second appearance on DVD, and first on Blu-ray, 1995's La Haine features a fine transfer and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound on DVD, and DTS-HD 5.1 audio on Blu-ray. Extras include an intro by actress Jodie Foster, audio commentary by director Mathieu Kassovitz, the “Ten Years of La Haine” retrospective documentary (84 min.), a “Social Dynamite” segment on the film's social impact that includes interviews with three sociologists (34 min.), deleted and extended scenes with a new video afterwards by Kassovitz (11 min.), the production featurettes “Making of a Scene” (7 min.) and “Preparing for the Shoot” (6 min.), a behind-the-scenes photo gallery, trailers, and a booklet with an essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau and a 2006 appreciation by filmmaker Costa-Gavras. Bottom line: a solid Blu-ray debut for this critical favorite.]A single gun on the loose is no big news here in the U.S., where 37,000 people are shot and killed every year by 230 million guns owned by Americans (50% of American households have guns). Josh Kafka's sobering documentary Gun Society explores America's love affair with guns, interviewing NRA officials, owners who think that guns are sexy, and gun dealers (which outnumber gas stations in the United States). In a country where "clacker balls" were removed from the market because they were deemed too dangerous, the easy availability of handguns costs tens of thousands of lives, and costs over $156 billion in health care each year. Ironically, it is the gun owner who is most at risk--he or she is 2.8 times more likely to be killed by a gun than the person who doesn't own one. Gun Society is a powerful overview. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P.The everyday tragedy of guns is brought home in the student-made Guns & the Lives They Leave Holes In, which looks at a family destroyed by a suicide, and the lives of two young people caught in the crossfire of gang shootings. At 17 minutes, the film is too short to really engage the issue; instead it offers profiles all too familiar to American audiences who see these stories daily played out on the evening news. An optional purchase. Aud: H, C, P.Handguns: Made for Killing, Not for Kids also serves up profiles: a pair of dramatic re-enactments; in the first a kid uses his father's gun to shoot a local bully, and in the second, another young boy shoots his sister accidentally while playing. The program also looks at a young man who was paralyzed from the waist down when he was hit during a gunfight between teens. Although interview comments from law officials are interspersed throughout the short program, Handguns suffers from the same problem as Guns & the Lives They Leave Holes In: we've already heard the stories...what are the solutions? Not a necessary purchase. Aud: E, J, H, P.The most ambitious of the tapes, Wasted!: Guns & Teens, Lives & Dreams is a hodgepodge of useful and useless segments, almost arbitrarily presented. Hosted by Sharon Strong (who talks in that annoyingly singsong newscaster's voice), the program features interviews with California Senator Dianne Feinstein and actor Samuel L. Jackson, and a gripping presentation from former gangbanger turned undercover cop/rap singer Eric Davis, who speaks to a group of kids in juvenile detention about the three routes available to the audience: going straight, landing in the big house, or a trip to the cemetery. Unfortunately, the good scenes are undercut by poorly staged sequences and a running (and thoroughly pointless) gag involving the San Diego Chicken. An optional purchase. Aud: J, H, P.While none of these new videos, with the exception of Gun Society, really furthers our understanding of guns and particularly the problem of guns and kids, new programs are constantly appearing. Hopefully, better tapes will be reviewed in coming issues. (R. Pitman)