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Rating: Ex-partisan, a genuine Gaullist, a right-wing man due to his pessimism about the destinies and feelings of man, Jean Pierre Melville (1917-1973) is certainly the best director of the "noir" genre in the history of French cinema. In his films, from "Le Doulos," to "Tutte le ore feriscono, l'ultima uccide," "Les Sans Nom," all the characteristics that have made the French thriller known and loved worldwide are contained. But Melville (real name J. P. Grumbach), like all great genre cinema authors, transcends borders to recount the movements of the human soul.
Influential gray eminence of the new wave cinema (to the point that Godard has him act in "Breathless" as the writer Parvulesco in a cameo), relegated himself to the noir cinema area to better express his pessimistic vision of existence, Melville reaches his creative zenith with the magnificent "Le Samouraï," a poor Italian title for the much more coherent original name, "Le Samouraï" (1967).
The film stars Alain Delon, who after debuting with celebrated directors like Visconti and Antonioni, chooses the path of the "polar" as a safe vehicle for his artistic career. In "Le Samouraï," the actor delivers his most remarkable performance to the point that he often finds himself reprising the same cliché several times (including the notable "Tony Arzenta" by Duccio Tessari). In "Le Samouraï," Delon is Jef Costello (Italian mysteries...), an ice-cold hitman who carries out his commissions flawlessly with ironclad alibis. He is commissioned to kill the manager of a club where a successful jazz pianist, Valerie (Cathy Rosier), performs. The latter will be an involuntary witness to the exit of the killer just after he has completed the task.
Costello has a perfectly devised alibi (perhaps the most ingenious in the history of cinema); during the lineup, Jef walks out free, thanks in part to the testimonies of his woman, Jane (Nathalie Delon), and the silence of the pianist, perhaps fascinated by the dark adjuster. However, the inspector (François Perier) suspects that Costello is the culprit, more due to intuition than evidence, which, given the alibi, seems absent. But even the most sophisticated device always has a flaw: Jef was seen leaving his woman's house by one of her clients (it is implied that the girlfriend is a prostitute) and provides testimony to the inspector. Meanwhile, Costello has to deal with his employers, who have decided to pay him with lead rather than francs...
"Le Samouraï" is a film that retains an unassailable charm over the years: it can be said to be the quintessence of classic French noir, with its silences, long takes, rain, and underworld.
Melville seems to know the underworld scene well; the cars Jef changes and the ways to counterfeit them, the environments of illegal poker, the rooms of police stations, and the chiaroscuro of jazz clubs. Everything is realistic, everything is precise. But the true winning card of the film is Delon himself: never like in this film has his beautiful icy face and distant manners been sublimated into the construction of a glacial and perfectionist character, seemingly devoid of feelings. Jef is a lonely man, completely and voluntarily alone, stifled in his trench coat and his fedora. He slips into other people's cars like a cat (memorable is the theft of the "Citroën DS" in the opening minutes); he lives in an old apartment, obviously alone, except for a canary, the only company being its monotonous chirping. He is a true Samurai: he performs his tasks without wanting to know anything other than the name he has to kill and returns home without a shiver of remorse or pity. Killing is logical, and in this, he is a true oriental. Much like the proud choice to die his way, almost a seppuku with a firearm. The final scene is memorable precisely because, like Jef, it represents his death with detachment. And for this reason, it results in an unforgettable closure.
Many scenes are immortal for this jewel: the chase in the metro, later copied in many other films, including "The French Connection" by William Friedkin, the placement of bugs in Jef's room (the police will hear only the canary's chirping for days), the aforementioned car theft in a gloomy Paris, the lineup at the police station. The fantastic Perier's interpretation is outstanding: his inspector is the perfect nemesis to Jef, and his determination, almost blind, makes us dislike him whereas the killer seems fascinating and fragile, enough to win the pianist's heart.
Despite the plethora of noirs following "Le Samouraï," none will reach the formal perfection and charm of Melville's film. All the themes and atmospheres of the genre are invented and concluded in this work, which, I emphasize, forms the basis of Jim Jarmusch's homage to this film, "Ghost Dog." Credit to Melville (who on the opening credits even invents a maxim of "Bushido," the Samurai code (to truly understand the film's spirit); credit to the great performances and, unforgettable, the music of François de Roubaix (the beautiful fugue on the Hammond that accompanies the killer's movements) and the photography of the great Henri Decae, the dean of noir directors, a perfect interpreter of the rains and lows of an unprecedented Paris.
The new DVD edition of the film is suggested, available on the mule: the soundtrack has been cleaned, and the music re-edited at the right point of the original edition.
Your tiring, anodyne, mmh happypippo
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