#151: Le Samourai

Release Date: October 25th, 1967

Format: Criterion Collection on Blu-ray

Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville and Georges Pellegrin

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville

4 Stars

Le Samourai is riveting.

The film follows an assassin, Jef Costello (Alain Delon), before and after his successful mission to kill a nightclub owner in 1960s Paris. As hinted at by the film’s title, Costello lives according to strict codes that control his personal and professional life. The film’s opening on-screen text: “There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai, unless it is that of a tiger in the jungle…perhaps.”

Director Jean-Pierre Melville matches the tone of the film to his stoic protagonist. It’s entrancing watching matter-of-factly as Costello steals a car: He secretly watches a man park his sedan on a busy street and walk away, Costello cautiously enters the car and lays a large set of keys on the passenger seat, and then, one by one, as he alertly monitors the street for the car’s owner and police officers, he tests each key in the ignition systematically. The process must take over a minute. I don’t think I blinked the entire time.

Process is a big part of Le Samourai. In addition to stealing cars, we observe police planting a bug in Costello’s apartment, a police chief meticulously arranging a suspect lineup to catch Costello (who he just knows is the killer), and Costello traversing Paris’ subway system to evade dozens of police. 

All of this set upon the backdrop of ultracool ‘60s Paris, adorned with fedoras, trench coats, cigarettes, and impossibly beautiful Parisians. The atmospherics are immaculate.

What to make of the film’s tragic ending? I’m not sure, but in a good way. Like I said, the film is as stoic as our protagonist.

The code by which he lives seems to prove that his demise is intentional. Why else would he show up to a police sting with no disguise, no bullets, and no exit route? Is he protecting one of the two women in his life? Has he hopelessly lost control over his own life, and prefers death? Has he fallen in love, which is antithetical to his existence? 

The film, and especially its ending, seem to be shrouded in the same degree of uncertainty as its protagonist. Maybe the truth lies in the film’s title, Le Samourai. 

More than survival or even victory, the ancient samurai believed that the purpose of their lives was to die.