Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.
Starring Alain Delon and François Périer.
Starring Alain Delon and François Périer.
In a Nutshell: Following a recent killing, an assassin for hire must dodge the police.
Or in John Woo’s words, the perfect movie. I admit, that statement leans on hyperbolic, but Le Samouraï is still worthy of classic status. It commands the audience’s attention with its thinly dressed settings and concise bits of dialogue, complementing a story that only gets more complex as it progresses. The plot involves an impossibly gorgeous and solitary assassin Jef Costello (Alain Delon) whose code of honor is equivalent to that of a samurai’s (as the fictional opening text explains). After he successfully kills a nightclub owner, he is seen by several patrons, including a musician, who refuses to name him to the police. Despite the backup of an alibi from his girlfriend, the police superintendent (François Périer) doggedly peruses proof that Costello was the killer. Costello much also avoid retribution from his employer, who he believes persuaded the musician not to identify him.
Or in John Woo’s words, the perfect movie. I admit, that statement leans on hyperbolic, but Le Samouraï is still worthy of classic status. It commands the audience’s attention with its thinly dressed settings and concise bits of dialogue, complementing a story that only gets more complex as it progresses. The plot involves an impossibly gorgeous and solitary assassin Jef Costello (Alain Delon) whose code of honor is equivalent to that of a samurai’s (as the fictional opening text explains). After he successfully kills a nightclub owner, he is seen by several patrons, including a musician, who refuses to name him to the police. Despite the backup of an alibi from his girlfriend, the police superintendent (François Périer) doggedly peruses proof that Costello was the killer. Costello much also avoid retribution from his employer, who he believes persuaded the musician not to identify him.
Jean-Pierre Melville’s filmmaking style is akin to Sergio Leone’s. Both director’s works are films about films; collages of cinema sprung from their fondest of American movie memories. Le Samouraï is a love letter to American noir films of the 1930’s and 40’s, with a fresh treatment that strips away contrived plot devices and cheap suspense tactics. His world is almost graceful, demonstrated in the code of honor Costello has to his assassination methods. Costello’s delicate features and near silence shifts focus to his ruthlessness, making him a true portrait of a samurai warrior.
Le Samouraï is a precise and patient film, enabling itself to achieve level of suspense with as much minimalism as possible. Every character action becomes augmented against the bare mise-en-scène with the most mundane of actions moving with an otherworldly beauty. If there’s one reason why I disagree with Woo’s praise is that I just found it a cold movie. That’s not a just criticism, it was meant that way. That just is not my idea of movie perfection, especially since Delon’s robotic iciness began to ware itself out, giving Costello few dimensions outside of “honorable loner”. The film’s visual style of metallic gray and muted dull colors sets drains the film of passion and spontaneity (much like Costello himself). Le Samouraï is an exercise in meticulousness, both in Melville’s directing and Costello’s line of work. It may present emptiness a bit too well for its own good, but remains a beautifully dream-like noir.
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