A lone killer who honors the way of the samurai

Roel 2022-03-21 09:02:11

The movie to watch tonight is "The Lone Killer" directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, the godfather of the French New Wave.

Rating: 9.5

plot

It tells the story of a hired lone killer who was chased by both the police and the hiring party after an assassination attempt. (The plot of a good movie should be experienced by yourself.)

A lone killer who coexists with appearance, strength and affection

film language

Too tm capable! The beginning is a long shot of 2 and a half minutes, but it doesn't make people feel bored. The protagonist smokes in bed - the clouds are shrouded, the canaries are chirping - enriching the hearing, it is raining outside the window and it is daytime - - The dark room is very layered, and the shadow of the window is on the ceiling - the expressionist lighting allows me to slowly approach while reading the staff list and the passage of . the killer's home.

This movie takes the concept of "loneliness" to the extreme. Not only is the killer reticent, but even the first sentence of the film does not come until 11 minutes - "Jeff", the hero's name, comes from the mouth of his girlfriend said in. And every line and shot has its own meaning. For example, Jeff never took off his hat and entered the bar, but he kept his hat for the last time, and he didn't get the number...

The following two shots also express the director's serious thinking about shots:

When it was raining, Jeff was slowly trying to unlock the car. First, the raining glass made it difficult for others to see his movements, and secondly, it showed Jeff's faint sense of tension, and this tension also brought the audience.

The last time the license plate was changed, Jeff's upper forehead was covered with shadows, suggesting how the ending was going to be?

The editing is also very crisp and neat. For example, all the fights have no dazzling elements, which are solid and refreshing. But I don't know much about editing, so I won't analyze it here.

A mockery of bureaucracy

By depicting the ugly face of the police wasting a lot of manpower and material resources and raiding private houses, it criticized the shortcomings of the bureaucratic performance appraisal of the French police.

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Extended Reading
  • Hester 2022-04-22 07:01:32

    I didn't expect it to be so realistic, yet so simple and elegant. The killer's literacy is a meticulous grasp of time, space and surrounding things (such as the abnormality of a caged bird, this image is also self-contained). Think of Bresson's Pickpocket, which seems to be more extreme and metaphysical than the latter. This one highlights the emotional entanglement. The beginning and end of the film are especially good, with the charming loneliness and the tragic death of the smoke.

  • Orie 2021-12-22 08:01:15

    I think Melville’s greatest strength has always been his calmness in his movies. He has never seen those emotional and "direct expressions" in his movies, as well as his rich lens language, using very few lines or even no words. It is necessary for the lines to express all the plots, characters, emotions, and information in place using only pictures. In later generations of the same type of film, I have only seen such a powerful director's control in Cohen's Old Nowhere.

Le Samouraï quotes

  • Superintendant: I must ask you both to forgive me. Our job leaves no room for etiquette.

  • Superintendant's Assistant: What do you think about Costello?

    Superintendant: I never think.