Mathieu Kassovitz is a 29-year-old French director who in his first twofilms has probed the wound of alienation among France's young outsiders. His newfilm ``Hate'' tells the story of three young men--an Arab, an African and aJew--who spend an aimless day in a sterile Paris suburb, as social turmoilswirls around them and they eventually get into a confrontation with the police.

If France is the man falling off the building, they are the sidewalk.

In Kassovitz's first film, ``Cafe au Lait'' (1994), he told the story ofa young woman from the Caribbean who summons her two boyfriends--one African,one Jewish--to announce that she is pregnant. That film, inspired by Spike Lee's``She's Gotta Have It,'' was more of a comedy, but with ``Hate,'' also aboutcharacters who are not ethnically French, he has painted a much darker vision.

In America, where for all of our problems, we are long accustomed tobeing a melting pot, it is hard to realize how monolithic most European nationshave been--especially France, where Frenchness is almost a cult, and a politicalleader like Jean-Marie Le Pen can roll up alarming vote totals with hisanti-Semitic, anti-immigrant diatribes. The French neo-Nazi right wing lurks inthe shadows of ``Hate,'' providing it with an unspoken subtext for its Frenchaudiences. (Imagine how a moviegoer from Mars would misread a film like``Driving Miss Daisy'' if he knew nothing about Southern segregation.) The three heroes of ``Hate'' are Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Jewish, workingclass; Hubert (Hubert Kounde), from Africa, a boxer, more mature than hisfriends, and Said (Said Taghmaoui), from North Africa, more lighthearted thanhis friends. That they hang out with one another reflects the fact that inFrance, friendships are as likely to be based on class as race.

These characters inhabit a world where much of the cultural furniturehas been imported from America. They use words like ``homeboy.'' Vinz gives Saida ``killer haircut, like in New York.'' Vinz does a De Niro imitation (``Who youtalkin' to?''). There's break-dancing in the movie. Perhaps they like U.S.

culture because it is not French, and they do not feel very French, either.

During the course of less than 24 hours, they move aimlessly throughtheir suburb and take a brief trip to Paris. They have run-ins with the cops,who try to clear them off a rooftop hangout that has become such a youth center,it even has its own hot dog stand. They move on the periphery of riots that havestarted after the police shooting of an Arab youth. When his younger sister'sschool is burned down, Vinz's Jewish grandmother warns,``You start out likethat, you'll end up not going to temple.'' What underlies everything they do is the inescapable fact that they havenothing to do. They have no jobs, no prospects, no serious hopes of economicindependence, no money, few ways to amuse themselves except by hanging out. Theyare not bad kids, not criminals, not particularly violent (the boxer is theleast violent), but they have been singled out by age, ethnicity and appearanceas probable troublemakers. Treated that way by the police, they respond--almostwhether they want to or not. As a filmmaker, Kassovitz has grown since his first film. Hisblack-and-white cinematography camera is alert, filling the frame with meaninghis characters are not aware of. Many French films place their characters insuch picturesque settings--Paris, Nice--that it is easy to see them as morecolorful than real. But the concrete suburbs where Kassovitz sets his film (thesame sterile settings that were home to Eric Rohmer's cosmically different``Boyfriends and Girlfriends'' in 1987) give back nothing. These are emptyvistas of space--architectural deserts--that flaunt their hostility to the threeyoung men, as if they were designed to provide no cover. The film's ending is more or less predictable and inevitable, buteffective all the same. The film is not about its ending. It is not about thelanding, but about the fall. ``Hate'' is, I suppose, a Generation X film,whatever that means, but more mature and insightful than the American Gen Xmovies. In America, we cling to the notion that we have choice, and so if ourGen X heroes are alienated from society, it is their choice--it's their``lifestyle.'' In France, Kassovitz says, it is society that has made thechoice.