The hit man as object d'art
- Review By:
- tpb
- Date:
- December 28, 2008
- Movie:
- Le Samourai
- Director:
- Jean-Pierre Melville
- Released:
- 1967
- Good Guy:
- Jef Costello
- Played By:
- Alain Delon
- Bad Guy:
- Superintendent
- Played By:
- Francois Perier
- MPAA Rating:
- NR
- Family Friendly Ages:
- Older teens
This is an action movie art film, which seems something of a contradiction really, but there's suspense and drama and gun shots and a hit man with support staff; and police and victims and a femme fatale. It's got chase scenes and alibis and clandestine bugging and that all important inability-to-alter-the-course-of-events fatality that drives so many lone assassins. For an art film, it has a lot of the elements that propel the typical action movie. The thing Le Samourai also has that seems lacking in so many other action movies is lots and lots of walking. Jef Costello covers a lot of ground as he walks from one underground Metro stop to another; one night club to another; one stolen car to another; one crime scene to another; one side of his studio apartment to the other; and one place to walk towards to another. The sound of his dress shoes hitting the pavement mile-after-endless-mile tick like a tell-tale heart. But it's all minimalism and class and utterly compelling to watch.
Costello is expressionless as he fulfills the primary contract, and he maintains that expression throughout. He is cool, cold, competent, and wears his belted raincoat like a hit man's too tightly-wrapped uniform. When he confronts his targets, his gun goes off like so many gangsters' guns did in the movies of the 40's and 50's: loud and sharp and smokey as though the microphone is attached to the trigger, and the role of the sound-man has yet to be developed. But, like everything else in the movie, this is deliberate. The murder scene in Act 1 is edited exactly as the murder scene in Act 2 so that when Costello shoots, it seems as though his gun appears a split-second too late and he will lose the draw and be shot himself. The caged songbird in his apartment twitters and leaps about nervously as metaphor for Costello's own sad existence – an existence where he chooses to keep everything at a distance. His girlfriend is so far removed that she seems to be someone else's girlfriend entirely. Even when he meets his own ultimate, inevitable demise there's nothing but the shrug of dull acceptance. Le Samourai isn't the typical action movie that offers a couple of hours of escape and is immediately forgotten. It requires something of a commitment from the viewer; but it's a commitment that pays off in the end.
