Le Samouraï

Madisen Stubbs | March 2019 - 3 min read

One of my favorite films of all time is a French New Wave film from director Jean-Pierre Melville. The film stars Alain Delon, a rather dreamy actor who has also given great performances in Purple Noon and L’Eclisse where he played counter to Monica Vitti (another fabulous foreign actress who is out of this world).

Mentioned before, this is classified as a French New Wave film that pays homage to the Hollywood gangster films of the 1930s and 1940s. This is probably why I love this film because I grew up on those gangster films (or anything with Humphrey Bogart). Delon’s character, Jef Costello, is dress in the appropriate attire but it is still unclear who he is or what he does for the first part of the film. Also, I will take a second to let you know that there is no dialog for almost ten solid minutes. Not knowing anything about Jef, from the opening sequence we can assume he is some sort of criminal by the way he is dressed, his suspicion, and a ring of many keys.

I will try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible.

There is so much that goes on in this film that is hard to explain if you have not seen it. I encourage you to do so. “But Madisen, I’m not really into foreign films, especially old ones.”

Stop right there! To everything, there is an exception and I do believe this is one of those exceptions.

Soon, we find out Jef’s line of work and honestly, it shouldn’t come as a shock. Before I move on, I want to point out the beautiful jazz club in this movie. What a neat and modern looking place.

One of the first major characters we meet is Jane Lagrange, Alain Delon’s wife, who is a very interesting character. We can assume that these two are lovers and she does a lot for Jef throughout the movie. Watching this movie again, I can’t help but think about the psychology of Jane. She seems as if she is just going through the motions, helping Jef out because they have history and not because she loves him as the commissioner suggests. But is she telling the truth? Has she gotten so good at lying that this comes off as the truth? Again, this a very interesting film to dissect psychologically.

Caty Rosier plays the jazz pianist, Valérie, from the club. I won’t go into the discussion about her being a woman of color but fellow a blogger touches on that issue. But Her character is so interesting and we don’t know how things will play out with her. The film only gives us a few encounters with her but we learn a lot. This is a woman who lies to the police, one could argue for good reason, but it seems like there more than just the surface level of this. Le Samouraï doesn’t give us a lot of answers.

The ending is my favorite part. Valérie delivers my favorite line by asking:

-“Pourquoi, Jef?”

He answers her at this moment and perhaps all of the moments that proceeded this one. I believe he realizes that too at this moment. We have a character who has been on the run and goes to do one last job. But this one is more difficult than all the previous. It makes you ask why? Has Jef changed as a person? Did Valérie play a big role in change by giving him a second chance when he messed up for probably the first time in a long time?

At first, I was not sure how the word “samurai” fit into this gangster French New Wave film but now I know. Although the samurai is a dark and mysterious character, he is noble in his actions.

I highly encourage you to take the time to sit down and watch this film. It is a beautiful piece of cinema that cannot be lost.

Thank you for reading! I hope I didn’t spoil anything for you.