Der eiskalte Engel

I just recently saw this film for the first time (a la Criterion) and I was completely blown away. This film can be summed up with a single word: minimalism.

This is a work of true cinema. Hollywood tends to forget that cinema is first and foremost a visual art. Le Samurai is a film that could've been made as a silent movie. The director establishes meaning not with dialog but with the best tools available to a director; editing, mise en scenes, cinematography and composition. There is a constant feeling of solitude and isolation. Even when the protagonist finds himself in large groups, his face is pale, his eyes are cast downward and he is still a constant outsider.

On another note, the film looks surprisingly modern. There's none of the graininess of many other 60s and 70s films. Rather, the lighting and the whole visual aesthetic is pitch perfect, from the black and white nightclub (dualism) to the sparse gray apartment to the subterranean eeriness of the Paris subway.

Personally, I would not recommend this film to people not interested in real cinema, people who like 'movies' rather than 'film', simply because there's a strong possibility it will seem extremely annoying and boring to you. On the other hand, if you're a fan of serious cinema, do yourself a favor and watch this film.

I found "Le Samourai" (**) to be more about style than substance. The pace is slow, the frustratingly enigmatic plot raises more questions than it answers (for starters, why does the hitman allow himself to be arrested and put in a police lineup after he's performed a very public shooting in the nightclub?). The title is just typical French neo-noir pretentiousness. The quotation from the Bushido is fictional and the attempt to forge a connection between a gangland hitman and a Japanese samourai is tenuous at best. I rewound this tape and watched certain key scenes again just to see if I could make any more sense of the at times nonsensical story (I couldn't). Many scenes seem to be mindless padding (e.g., the police take up 5 minutes of running time just bugging the killer's room with an absurdly conspicuous listening device that seems to be designed to be found in about two minutes). All-in-all, borrrring!

Alain Delon has had it. It's 1967, he's sitting on the hot seat of France's famed movie series, Monsieur Cinéma, and he's promoting Le Samouraï. "We have the great pleasure of welcoming Alain Delon to our show," the host says, looking in his guest's direction. "Alain Delon is in the spotlight because 'Le Samouraï' is opening this week." But the ambiance doesn't feel like a respected Inside the Actors Studio precursor; it feels more like a talk show, and Delon isn't in a good mood. He's been better known for his looks than his talents for his entire career. He's proud of the work he has done in acclaimed works like Purple Noon and The Leopard, but he finds himself taken less seriously than he'd like to be simply because he resembles a suave Dolce & Gabbana model. The Male Bardot, they call him.

But he's 32. He doesn't want to be labeled as a pretty boy who somehow gets enviable parts any longer. So instead of saying thank you to his host's polite but slightly condescending introduction, he elaborates on the date of the film's opening. "It's this Wednesday," he smirks. Aware of his guest's snarky mood, the host tries to pick himself back up. "The posters are all over Paris, and they're very striking. 'Le Samouraï', in big, black letters."

"Red," Delon interrupts before his interviewer can even say "letters." He's seen it all before: the host who actually knows nothing about the film but pretends to love it, the host who puts on a grin in order to appease disinterested viewers. Maybe he would have let this fly in the past, but Le Samouraï is far too important to him. He believes it to be a turning point in his undermined career. This isn't just some fluffy movie audiences hear about on a television program like it's Dean Martin's newest vehicle; this is "a work of art," he puts it. "A true auteur film in every aspect."

He goes on to discuss the ins-and-outs of the film with the watchful eye of an obsessed movie buff, and it's unlike anything we've seen Delon do before, personally or professionally. He's always been the confident kid that whisks by with a hint of danger, an exotic woman by his side. This image, along with the entire introduction of this review, may or may not be dramatized speculation on my part, but when I picture Delon, I picture him as the guy from L'Eclisse, fiendishly charismatic but in a tug-of-war between boyhood and the idea of an adulthood in which being taken seriously is everything.

Jean-Pierre Melville uses Delon in a way most directors would be afraid to attempt. Before, Delon's charm was his selling point, but in Le Samouraï, his allure is snatched from him. Melville takes away any ounce of precious dialogue in favor of a more nuanced approach, forcing Delon to embody a particularly cryptic character mostly through body language. In the past, actors in gangster films have been able to mangle the script and somehow spike their delivery to sound more menacing than usual. But Delon has to do something even harder, having to exude invincibility all the while keeping an icy exterior. People turn towards scenery-chewing performances when thinking about characterizations that "moved" them; in contrast Delon has done something masterful with subtlety, undoubtedly more impressive than the booming Shakespearian actors that began to creep out during the 1960s.

We see Costello go through his daily rituals, putting on his trench coat and fedora with strange precision, keying a car to get some extra loot, later pulling a job at a nightclub. Throughout the film, he doesn't show the slightest smidgen of a feeling. Is he numb? In denial? Truthfully, it doesn't matter. Though the storyline sees his normally smooth routine being interrupted by an investigation, he doesn't seem worried about the government closing in on his every move. He is so far into a life of crime that dying for his cause doesn't seem all that bad.

This is probably why the film is called Le Samouraï, as the samurais in all those Asian epics were more than willing to lose their lives in order to appease their reputations and their peers. Unlike Melville's earlier projects, Le Samouraï doesn't have the same blatant criminal romanticism. It's slick and crystalline, yes, but every frame carries enough tension to suggest that Dolph Lundgren might come out of the shadows and Machine Gun Kelly everyone to death. A tragic ending is a given. Silence is cherished in the film; along with Delon's moodless characterization, the facsimile of scenic solitude is furthered. The greyed-out style, Melville's intricate direction, and, of course, Delon's performance, work together with astonishing virtuosity.

The only complaint I ever find myself having with Melville films is how untouchable they are. They feel miles apart from us, detached, so stylish that we grow to be more appreciative than adoring. But there is no denying how great a filmmaker Melville is. "He's the greatest director I've had the good fortune, pleasure, and honor to work with up to this point," Delon dryly gushes later on in the Monsieur Cinéma interview. It sounds dramatic, but sometimes, melodrama can be true. Melville is not just a guy with a dream; he's a visionary, a poet of style.

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This film starts off with the same sound like Sergio Leone's 'C'era un volta il west', but it's just that here the sound is made not by a plate, but a canary, the cold-blooded killer's canary.

This film was made in 1967, the French nouveau vague already apparent all over the place, but with much more subtle undertones than, say, a work by Truffaut.

No, Melville's films were old-school, but at the same time revolutionary, in a delicate way. Take for example the 'chase' scene through the Metro. Practically nothing happens: there are no gunfights, no combat sequences, perhaps just a small chase. But it is Melville's camera and Delon's inimitable performance that keep the audience mesmerized all the way.

The camera practically flirts with the audience throughout the whole movie, picking the most interesting angles and achieving so much practically without any effort. Delon's character changes his expression only once or twice during the movie, shoots faster than even Leone's gunslingers and never forgets to feed his canary. To me, one of the most accomplished antiheroes of the whole genre.

The dialogue is barely there, but when it is, then it's something you'd probably wish you would have come up with yourself. It is a minimalist work that achieves the absolute maximum. Simply put: one of the best crime noirs ever made.

The film begins with a preface : 'Il n'y' a pas plus profound solitude que Celelle samurai Si Ce Nést Celle Dún Tigre Dans la jungle..Peut-etre..'Le Bushido. Samurai's solitude is only comparable a tiger into jungle . Stars Jef Costello (Alain Delon as excellent anti-hero) is a cold professional killer , he establishes an alibi with the help his lady-lover (Nathalie Delon) and unexpectedly in an act of almost unknown compassion by a club's piano player (Rosier). Meanwhile , he's double-crossed and an obstinate police inspector (Francois Perier) track him down . The precise murderer is pursued throughout the Paris'underground . Then the doomed Costello becomes an avenging angel of death seeking for vengeance.

This is the best of Melville's thrillers with magnificent Alain Delon as the expressionless murderous . Delon has striven in vain to repeat this success in numerous subsequent movies at the same genre , similar others known actors as Lino Ventura , Jean Paul Belmondo and generally directed by Henri Verneuil , Jose Giovanni and Jacques Deray . The movie packs a splendid cinematography by Henri Decae , the photography glitters as metallic and cold as a gun barrel . The picture was perfectly directed by Jean Pierre Melville , giving a memorable work . Later his beginning as a post-war forerunner of the 'Nouvelle vague' , he left his style in several different ways as a purveyor of a certain kind of noir movie , creating his own company and a tiny studio . Although retaining its essential French touch and developing a style closer to the world of the American film Noir of the 1940s than any of their other such foray s. Dealing with character-studio about roles damned to inevitable tragedies , powerful finale , stylized set pieces heightens the suspense and tension have place all around the Melville's filmmaking . His movies and singular talent are very copied and much-admired by contemporary directors, specially the 'Polar' or noir French cinema , such as : 'Second breath' , 'The red circle', 'Dirty money' and , of course , 'Le samurai'.