Viewers who are immersed in modern movie viewing experience may always have quite romantic expectations for the killer image on the screen. In modern movies, they are not only warriors who never stay for a thousand miles, but also "dancers" who play swords and sing, and regard fighting skills as art. The identity of the killer often means the continuous fragmentation in time and the wandering in space. They hide in the dark and are hard to find. It is precisely this uncertainty that makes the killer's image extremely malleable, and they can become the center of the dramatic tension network in different image time and space.
However, this "Lone Killer" from France in the 1960s has no intention to weave a screen myth of a warrior for us. The film's French title "Le Samourai" means "samurai", a loanword of Japanese origin. However, compared to the image of the warrior who hoes the strong and helps the weak and fights collectively in "Seven Samurai", the killer Jeff in this film is more similar to the ninja in Japanese culture. Like a ninja, Jeff lives alone, performs assassination missions alone, and heals alone after being injured, like a beast licking its wounds. As said at the beginning of the film, "Lonely like a tiger in the forest" Under Melville's lens, Jeff is so reticent and stern, we can hardly catch a single sliver of obvious emotional changes and fluctuations in Alain Delon's face. The wide white trench coat and Texas felt hat belong to Jeff's ninja costume - stripped of personality as much as possible, and the actions of the characters are hidden under the heavy clothing.
Similar to the way ninjas act, the killing scenes in the film are extremely restrained, and there is no bloody fog and bullets flying. The taciturn killer usually wears white gloves, doesn't talk much with his assassins, and pulls the trigger to complete his mission after indicating his intentions. Jeff's actions might be seen as ruthless and cold-blooded, and the ending of his mob at the end of the film seems to suggest that this is a tragic antihero coming to an end. However, the killer who has been stripped of his will is destined to be only a cold revolver, and the police who say "the truth is not what you say, but what I say" after trespassing in a private house are also very just. being doubted. Jeff under the lens of Jean-Pierre Melville, like the Moby Dick written by Herman Melville whom he admired, was transformed from the first slayer to the last hunting object, with a strong sense of self-destruction The energy of this identity inversion is a metaphor for the ultimate fate that has nowhere to escape. And Jeff's calmness and composure when looking directly at the muzzle of the gun, that kind of "demeanor under pressure" Hemingway said, may be the last trace of grace and elegance that he is trying to maintain in addition to his involuntary killer fate. dignity.
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