Le Samourai (1967)

Film: Le Samourai (1967)

Stars: Alain Delon, Francois Perier, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

Film noir has existed basically since the early 1940's when it was invented, and there's never really been in a time frame where it didn't have at least some movies, but when we discuss noir, it had really two American heydays, roughly from 1941-59, the original run of Classical Hollywood noir, where it went out-of-style pretty much hand-in-hand with the studio system, and then the early-to-mid 1970's, when the genre made a comeback in the wake of the Watergate scandals.  But in the late 1960's, if you wanted to look at noir, you needed to leave the Hollywood system, and in most cases, head to France.  As we talked about last week, France was obsessed with the genre, making films like Elevator to the Gallows (link to my review of it, and all of the film noirs on this blog, at the bottom of this page).  In 1967, they made what might be the other best-known film noir to come out of the French New Wave, Le Samourai, starring Alain Delon and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, who would make noir-inspired movies for much of the 1960's.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film starts with Jef Costello (Delon) keeping a small bird as a pet in a barren apartment.  We see quickly that he's deeply methodical, and isn't the kind of man who leaves anything to chance.  We learn this pretty quickly when his lover Jane (Delon) provides him an alibi for a killing he's committed.  We soon learn that Jef is in fact a contract killer, one who has never been caught before, but is rounded up by the police, and potentially in danger of being identified by a woman named Valerie (Rosier) he lets live at the club.  Valerie, though, doesn't identify him, but the Commissaire (Perier) can't let up, convinced (correctly) that Jef is guilty.  Jef runs into issues when the men who hired him to kill the initial target want him dead, afraid he'll give them up to the police.  This sets up a high-stakes showdown between the bunch, with Jef eventually dying in a standoff with Valerie, whom it looks like he's going to kill, but after the police shoot him (to save her) it turns out there were no bullets in his gun.

The film is shrouded in enigma, and in almost all ways feels more neo-noir as a result than a noir (neo-noir was given the ability to leave a lot of ambiguity without the pressures of the Hays Code, meaning we had to end with villains getting their comeuppance even when that didn't make sense to the plot), as we don't entirely know Jef's motivations, even in his final act.  In fact, the ending of Le Samourai has been long-debated, and Melville doesn't appear to have left a lot of answers.  I think it hearkens back to the title, where the Samurai (in this case, Jef), forced to atone for losing his perfect streak of murders because his employers want him dead & the women in his life are now suffering the consequences of his actions, commits a form of ritual suicide that should hopefully protect both Jane & Valerie (both of whom will be in trouble with the law as well if Jef is caught as they've perjured themselves).  But there's a lot of ways to interpret Le Samourai, which is maybe the point.

My friend Robin said of Alain Delon "you have to have ridiculously beautiful people next to Alain Delon or he looks like an alien" and this quote sums up the motif of Le Samourai precisely.  Delon is sometimes a wooden actor, one who is so unnervingly attractive that it's hard to concentrate (to Robin's point, putting him next to the equally staggering Delon & Rosier puts the rest of the cast on some level of parity, easing the mind of the audience), but this fits so well with Jef.  Jef is not meant to be understood, even in moments where he might share a little bit about himself (like his private conversations with Jane & Valerie).  The further we go in the movie, he does a good job of showcasing how he's unraveling...but never abandons the character work he's done to make Jef feel invincible.  I maybe wanted one or two bigger moments, or some explanation as to why the Commissaire loathed Jef so much, but Delon's work here is very specifically catered to the film, and Rosier steals every scene she's in as the elusive pianist.  Throw in gorgeous set designs (Paris in the 1960's, man...it doesn't get better), immaculate costumes, and dreamy cinematography and you've got a winner.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Long Goodbye, Night Moves, Nightcrawler