Le Samouraï (1972)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Really Surprised!

Let's be realistic.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

I could go on forever about how much I adore this film's tone, cinematography, and pacing, but I'll just say this: This is without a doubt, the coolest film I've ever seen.

LE SAMOURAI is a mysterious crime drama film that is made in the pattern of Hollywood gangster films in the noir genre. Mr. Mellville has added several popular details from Japanese culture into a fictitious gangster story. The protagonists, costumes, nightclubs, streets and murders have all the characteristics of the noir genre.Jef Costello lives in a single-room Paris apartment whose spartan furnishings include a little bird in a cage. He is a professional Parisian assassin-for-hire who, by nature of his work's solitary demands, has no friends. Although he is loved by Jane, Costello knows that she already has a lover. After he successfully wipes out a nightclub owner at the behest of his boss, he is seen leaving the scene by several witnesses, including piano player Valérie. Although he survives a police lineup thanks to a lie offered up by the fearless Valerie, Costello's alibi disintegrates rapidly and his shadowy employer takes out a contract on him. He seeks revenge...This is a sort of moral value test in rough circumstances. Namely, the main protagonist is in conflict with the law, his boss and himself. He does not make the difference between human shades. He does what he is paid for, and that, of course, will lead him to his seppuku.This film contains very little dialogue, characterization could have been better, but, the atmosphere is great.Alain Delon as Jef Costello is an attractive man and a cold-blooded killer at the same time. His selfish nature makes him incompetent to life, but unswerving when it comes to his work. Mr. Delon has offered a very good performance.His support are François Périer as a persistent investigating officer, Nathalie Delon (Jane) as a devoted "fiancé", who provides almost perfect alibi, and Cathy Rosier (Valérie) as a brave and enigmatic piano player.The direction is certainly impeccable, however, the plot is a frozen and the romance is improperly superficial.

Strictly businesslike contract killer Jef Costello (the supremely handsome and commanding Alain Delon, who's the very essence of stoic cool) pulls off a hit that's witnessed by several people. This in turn puts Jef in a precarious bind in which he must rectify the situation as quickly and quietly as possible or else the ever present and pesky police will close in on him.Ably directed with striking austerity by Jean-Pierre Melville, who also co-wrote the tightly constructed script with Georges Pellegrin, with a mesmerizing wordless ten minute opening sequence, a spare moody score by Francois de Roubaix, a cold and detached tone, sly touches of humor, gorgeously glossy cinematography by Henri Decae, a deceptively simple and straightforward narrative that unfolds at a deliberate pace, laconic dialogue, and a strong undercurrent of despair and melancholy (Jef's lonely existence gives this picture an unexpectedly poignant quality), this film not only works as a glorious celebration of smooth elegant style and pure cinema with a refreshing noted emphasis on poetic visuals over long-winded scenes of people talking, but also serves as a potent and provocative existential meditation on fate and destiny. Moreover, Delon's assured and charismatic presence keeps this picture humming; he receives sturdy from Francois Perrier as a determined and calculating police detective, Nathalie Delon as Jef's loyal accomplice Jane Lagrange, and Cathy Rosier as chic pianist femme fatale Valerie. Essential viewing.

Let us say that a passive fantasist, in a state of semi-stupor, unemployed, inactive, penniless, exhausted, lies stretched out on his bed, smoking what is perhaps his last cigarette. Gradually a notion forms in his mind, and the story begins. This accounts for the air of unreality, the goofs, the mistakes, in this seemingly meticulously planned, but actually extremely ridiculous enterprise. Like in an extended dream, events appear to hang together, but nothing in fact makes a great deal of sense.The hit-man's self-image is exceptionally cool. It would be. The other figures are shadowy and evanescent. They come and go. Their roles are ill-defined. A little caged bird evidently communicates with the central character. I don't think any of this actually happened outside the mind of this virtually wordless dreamer, living in an existential world, disorienting and confusing, meaningless and absurd. Great film, though. All style, from somewhere else, another place, another age.