Chapter 14 No One Is Lonelier Than a Killer: The Lone Killer, 1967

No One Is Lonelier Than a Killer: The Lone Killer, 1967 Li Bihua said: The "breast milk" of Jianghu movies is this Alan.Deron's The Lone Killer.Indeed, from John Woo, Luc.Besson, to Quentin.The works of Tarantino and Takeshi Kitano cannot escape the shadow of "The Lone Killer".Since Mayville (Jean-PierreMelville) will Alan.Delong dressed up in a windbreaker and a top hat, silent and calm. From now on, most of the killers on the screen will wrap themselves tightly, with a blank face, and can no longer escape the fate of loneliness and tragedy.Wu Yusen believes that the hot half of his works are influenced by Truffaut, while the cold half comes from Mayville.

Alan.The protagonist played by Delong has no background, lives alone, and has a very straightforward relationship with his employer, partner, and lover. He only has a name and identity-Jeff the Killer.Take a close look at his residence, which is simply furnished and dark in color, and even the city he haunts is empty, indifferent and lifeless.In Mayville's shots, whether it is Paris, Lyon or Marseille, every originally bustling city is gloomy and empty, especially in the late works like "Great Dawn", this atmosphere is exaggerated to the extreme.Whether it's a killer or a police officer, all the characters who appear in Mayville's movies are like caged birds (like the sensitive bird in Jeff's room).Perhaps such a city is the projection of their life and psychology.

The calm and neat Jeff was hired to shoot and kill a nightclub owner, and was captured by the police as one of the suspects during the search, but the perjury of the blonde lover and the denial of the dark-skinned girl who witnessed him allowed him to get away.Fearing that he would be implicated, the employer sent someone to shoot him dead.The police also noticed something strange and chased after him.Although there are very few dialogues and a stern look, Jeff's emotional world is still looming in the two or three meetings with his blonde lover and black-skinned female pianist.In the end, Jeff killed his employer and accepted another mission at the same time.He returned to the nightclub, put on white gloves amidst the music of the black-skinned girl, and pointed a gun at her—she was his last target.The ambushed police officers fired and shot Jeff, and they removed the gun from his hand, only to find that there was not a single bullet in it.No one knows why this killer is so desperate for death.Not even Jean Belmondo's monologue at the end of "Breathed," saying he's fed up, tired, and doesn't want to run anymore.But behind the blueprint of this Japanese samurai story, there is also the brand of existentialism.

In "The Lone Killer", Mayville condenses all the drama, emotional communication and life experience into a calm visual language. While abandoning a lot of dialogue, it also appears symmetrical and neat in terms of plot processing.For example, the scene of entering the garage to change the license plate and the scene of going to the lover's house all echoed well.Make the work like Alan.Deron's appearance is as clean and meticulous as his demeanor, and the whole movie is seamless.Film history commented on the film and praised it: Mayville highly abstracts the traditional tragedy.This is the result after he removed all the fiery and vain things in life, and let the emotions and philosophies be hidden in the characters and our cold eyes, leaving only loneliness.To quote the motto at the beginning of the film - no one is more lonely than a killer, except a tiger in the jungle.