The Samurai’s code

Sun 9.19.21

      I watched “Le Samurai” last night, a French film about a hired killer, which is a quiet film, that leaves you with quite a puzzle to reassemble.  It’s very low key cerebral; Alain Delon plays the killer as an unfeeling, calculating Samurai with his own code of ethics.  He is hired to kill a club owner.  The film starts with him in a sleazy hotel on the bed fully clothed smoking a cigarette from where he shortly gets up puts on his trench coat, his fedora and he’s off to do his job.  He dies in the last scene, shot down by police, a fate he could easily have avoided.  So why?  Since the film’s title is Le Samurai, is there some kind of code of ethics involved in the killer’s actions?  The film opens with this quote: “There is no solitude greater than a samurai’s, unless perhaps it is that of a tiger in the jungle.”  It’s from The Book of Bushido, which is the code of the samurai.

      After finishing the movie I looked on the internet for reviews of the film and came across Roger Ebert’s take on the film.  He’s an elegant reviewer. But he’s got it all wrong when he gets into the story.  He does provide a quote from a 16th century Japanese book, “The Code of the Samurai” that is worth repeating: “One who is a samurai must before all things keep constantly in mind, by day and by night . . . the fact that he has to die.  That is his chief business.”

      After my vision quest, I came to understand that there are circumstances in which one must put one’s life on the line for.  Or else one is simply someone else’s tool, at their bidding.  Without this commitment to oneself, to the authenticity of oneself, that is purposeful and must be respected, there is no identity, life is merely, and always, a search for safety.

      I have downloaded The Book of Bushido and will also get The Code of the Samurai from the digital Library and you can too at: https://archive.org/

The favorite post this month has been Simulation Theory