Le SamouraïHaving a code can give one direction; it can also become a prison of one's own making. Le Samouraï is a French crime thriller about an assassin-for-hire named Jef Costello (Alain Delon), who lives a spartan life in a drab, barely furnished apartment in Paris. The first part of the movie shows the meticulous way that Jef goes about killing the owner of a nightclub, although he is spotted by a pianist named Valérie (Caty Rosier) as he is exiting the victim's office. After a persistent police superintendent (François Périer) sets his sights on Jef as the killer, Jef must evade the police, using the city to his advantage.
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Director Jean-Pierre Melville makes a point of letting the audience presume much about Jef by way of how little that is shared about him. He is a reclusive loner, and yet he is supposedly having an affair with a woman named Jane Lagrange (Nathalie Delon). I say "supposedly" because their romance seems to exist first and foremost solely for the purpose of establishing an alibi for him at the time of the murder. He shows up at her place on the night of the killing and she comments that she's glad to see him because it shows that she is useful to him. Never once do they kiss, despite how dangerous his "mission" is supposed to be. Jef is idiosyncratic; he keeps a collection of mineral water and cigarettes neatly ordered on top of his armoire, he always runs his fingers across the brim of his fedora before departing his apartment, and he carries around a ponderous set of keys with which he steals cars. The question that lingers in my mind about Jef is, "how did he get to this place in his life?" Surely it isn't "normal" for someone to go around killing people for money, but the way that he does it seems like he's following a kind of protocol. It's as if there is no "real" Jef...just this automaton named Jef who performs his duties in accordance with his programming. But having the movie explain to us why Jef became a hitman would not only ruin our enjoyment at the wondering of it, but it would add tedious exposition to the film. What makes Le Samouraï so engaging really isn't the story; it is the mystique of Jef as an empty vessel--a cipher. He could be anyone, and we subconsciously assert attributes onto him because he is so neutral. Does he love Jane? Does it matter? What is his relationship with the mechanic who swaps the plates on his stolen cars and gives him a gun at the snap of his fingers? Just why does Jef need the money he gets for killing? Le Samouraï is the kind of "cool" cinema that led the charge for many more emotionally distant hitmen in movies for years to come. Compare Jef to the likes of Ryan Gosling's "The Driver" of Drive, and you'll immediately see the inspiration. Or even Léon from Léon: The Professional; both movies (aside from being made by French filmmakers) have protagonists who are hitmen with mysterious pasts, and both of them have their own idiosyncrasies. But what makes Le Samouraï so assured is in how reserved Melville is with details about Jef, and how his humanity seems so much more remote as a result.
It wouldn't be a stretch to look at Le Samouraï as something like a police procedural, but what's interesting is how easily the film dons the identity of a game of cat-and-mouse between Jef and the superintendent. Both of these men are clever in their professions, and the film shows this through detailed scenes that feel authentic, if probably a bit stylized. Even though Jef couldn't predict that he would need an alibi for certain, he prepares two of them; one with Jean, another with some fellow playing a game of cards. But perhaps the most exciting of these detailed moments is after the superintendent has rounded up roughly four hundred suspects, and brings them into a line up a few at a time to be identified by witnesses from the nightclub. The superintendent is intimately familiar with the law and the criminal records of his suspects, and isn't afraid to leverage his expertise to coerce others into compliance. He gets his first sniff that Jef is his man after a few of the workers at the club believe that Jef was the trench coat wearing silhouette that they saw leaving the club in a hurry. Subsequently, the superintendent goes to work tearing apart Jef's alibi, which relies on Jane's statement and her boyfriend identifying Jef leaving the building just before 2 a.m.. What's intriguing about this scene is how the superintendent keeps people in separate rooms, moving from room to room by way of a conjoining hallway, compartmentalizing the flow of information. All of this moves swiftly, and shows how sharp his intellect is in trying to piece together Jef's exact whereabouts. Afterwards, his intuition tells him that Jef's alibi is just a little too neat. Some might look at him as just a hard-nosed cop digging his heels in and dredging up incriminating information about Jef with a bias; but as the audience, we know that he's right. So with enough scenes like this, there is the sense that one might start to identify more with the superintendent than Jef, who we know is a liar and a killer; furthermore, a killer for money. Of course this falls apart after a scene where he tries to coerce Jane into ratting on Jef, after having his cops toss her apartment. And there's the question about the title of the movie itself; is Jef truly a "samurai"? The film includes a quote--which it turns out is not from a real book--describing the samurai as being alone, like a tiger in the jungle. So the title, apparently, has more to do with Jef being "alone" rather than adhering to a kind of "code" akin to that of the samurai caste of feudal Japan. But even this seems incorrect, because Jef isn't really alone, if Jane is truly his girlfriend; then again, perhaps she isn't. And yet if Jef is meant to be made sympathetic on the basis of being a loner, why choose a career as a killer? Is there a reason he's taken it upon himself to end lives for money; and what is he doing with all of the money anyway? One of the first shots in the movie has him holding what looks like a stack of half-burned francs; is he actually burning his salary? One wonders if Jef's career is meant to be a kind of self-imposed punishment or sentence, and that he never cared about the money in the first place. But then the question of "why" still remains. That's what makes Le Samouraï linger in the minds of its audience long after the credits roll--filled with questions never to be answered, and featuring a protagonist who is a mystery in and of himself.
Recommended for: Fans of a compelling and stylish crime thriller that has inspired many others like it since. Le Samouraï is, despite being about a killer, a largely bloodless movie (though not entirely), one that tells its story predominantly with visual imagery instead of dialogue or exposition, which in turn adds suspense and intrigue to the film.
It wouldn't be a stretch to look at Le Samouraï as something like a police procedural, but what's interesting is how easily the film dons the identity of a game of cat-and-mouse between Jef and the superintendent. Both of these men are clever in their professions, and the film shows this through detailed scenes that feel authentic, if probably a bit stylized. Even though Jef couldn't predict that he would need an alibi for certain, he prepares two of them; one with Jean, another with some fellow playing a game of cards. But perhaps the most exciting of these detailed moments is after the superintendent has rounded up roughly four hundred suspects, and brings them into a line up a few at a time to be identified by witnesses from the nightclub. The superintendent is intimately familiar with the law and the criminal records of his suspects, and isn't afraid to leverage his expertise to coerce others into compliance. He gets his first sniff that Jef is his man after a few of the workers at the club believe that Jef was the trench coat wearing silhouette that they saw leaving the club in a hurry. Subsequently, the superintendent goes to work tearing apart Jef's alibi, which relies on Jane's statement and her boyfriend identifying Jef leaving the building just before 2 a.m.. What's intriguing about this scene is how the superintendent keeps people in separate rooms, moving from room to room by way of a conjoining hallway, compartmentalizing the flow of information. All of this moves swiftly, and shows how sharp his intellect is in trying to piece together Jef's exact whereabouts. Afterwards, his intuition tells him that Jef's alibi is just a little too neat. Some might look at him as just a hard-nosed cop digging his heels in and dredging up incriminating information about Jef with a bias; but as the audience, we know that he's right. So with enough scenes like this, there is the sense that one might start to identify more with the superintendent than Jef, who we know is a liar and a killer; furthermore, a killer for money. Of course this falls apart after a scene where he tries to coerce Jane into ratting on Jef, after having his cops toss her apartment. And there's the question about the title of the movie itself; is Jef truly a "samurai"? The film includes a quote--which it turns out is not from a real book--describing the samurai as being alone, like a tiger in the jungle. So the title, apparently, has more to do with Jef being "alone" rather than adhering to a kind of "code" akin to that of the samurai caste of feudal Japan. But even this seems incorrect, because Jef isn't really alone, if Jane is truly his girlfriend; then again, perhaps she isn't. And yet if Jef is meant to be made sympathetic on the basis of being a loner, why choose a career as a killer? Is there a reason he's taken it upon himself to end lives for money; and what is he doing with all of the money anyway? One of the first shots in the movie has him holding what looks like a stack of half-burned francs; is he actually burning his salary? One wonders if Jef's career is meant to be a kind of self-imposed punishment or sentence, and that he never cared about the money in the first place. But then the question of "why" still remains. That's what makes Le Samouraï linger in the minds of its audience long after the credits roll--filled with questions never to be answered, and featuring a protagonist who is a mystery in and of himself.
Recommended for: Fans of a compelling and stylish crime thriller that has inspired many others like it since. Le Samouraï is, despite being about a killer, a largely bloodless movie (though not entirely), one that tells its story predominantly with visual imagery instead of dialogue or exposition, which in turn adds suspense and intrigue to the film.