By Matt Harries
I must admit it was one of those times when even the most fleeting of glimpses proved enough to whet my appetite. A while back my eyes skimmed over the description of The Samurai in these very pages, which at the time was causing a stir on the festival circuit. A horror (of sorts) involving a strange combination of wolf and samurai warrior manifesting in the modern day sounded right up my street in terms of sheer lunacy. There seemed to be a refreshing originality to the concept that just sounded intriguing. Then, for whatever reason, I lost track of the film and almost forgot about it. When the opportunity arose to review it I jumped at the chance. However, although I quite enjoyed The Samurai, it is so heavily rooted in allegory that in the end it felt worthy rather than exciting.
The plot is pretty straightforward. Wolski (Michel Dierks) is a young police officer in a small town on the German side of the border with Poland. Being surrounded by forest, the residents have a healthy trepidation for the dangers that lie therein, especially the wolves who roam there. Wolski lives a quiet life, his responsibility to his job and his grandmother meaning that he misses out on the youthful freedoms of others his age. Fascinated by the wolves, he tries to lure them closer. Although he says he intends to do so in order to remove them, his boss Horvath is not so sure, suspecting that young Wolski has an unhealthy interest in the predatory beasts. One day Wolski receives an unusually shaped package, addressed to ‘Lone Wolf’. A strange night-time phone call concerning this package leads him into a life changing encounter, one that will lead Wolski through fire and blood to revelation…
There was a pleasing randomness to the story’s trajectory during the opening sections of The Samurai. However, rather than continue down the path of folkloric surreality, the film quickly assembles itself as a platform for expressing a quite specific metaphor. In this case Wolski’s meeting of the cross-dressing Samurai acts as an extended analogy for sexual isolation and the battle between expression and repression. On one hand you have Wolski, young but certainly not free, beholden to his job and his role as carer to his grandmother. The wolf represents freedom, danger, the outside world, the mysteries of carnality. The Samurai marches through the village smashing and killing with his sword, while the residents remain locked away in their homes. Wolski’s pursuit of him serves two purposes; on one hand he is doing his job, trying to apprehend this destructive figure; on the other he is fascinated with the Samurai, who speaks to him with whispered intimacy, exhorting him to step forward into adventure and embrace his desires (or words to that effect).
Once we establish that this basis in the metaphorical forms the entirety of Wolski’s journey, I have to say my interest waned a little. Reading subtexts into tales of the supernatural is nothing new – Stoker’s Dracula is as florid a study of rampant yet nebulous sexuality as you could wish for – but when that subtext becomes the film’s main/only point it detracts from the sense of mystery that is so important to any such film. Nonetheless this a relatively short work and most importantly a debut feature. As such I think it is worth focussing on the positives, of which there are certainly a few.
Visually, the film looks excellent, the lush dark greens of the forest contrasting with the occasional bright blood and flame to remind me of the Hammer Horror Technicolor palette. Michel Dierks exhibits plenty of youthful vulnerability as Wolski, but it is the performance of Pit Bukowski as the Samurai himself who steals the show from an acting point of view. In white dress and red lipstick, leering from behind his lank blonde hair, he still manages to portray a certain danger and wildness despite his un-warrior like appearance. I daresay we’ll be seeing more from him in the future – perhaps as a successor to the great Klaus Kinski, with whom he shares a certain maniacal intensity.
There were a couple of moments that had me feeling rather less enamoured. The dance scene with Wolski and the Samurai was unintentionally laughable to these jaded eyes, but was eclipsed by the rather unsubtle stand off at the erm, climax of the film, in which our two combatants face each other with ‘swords’ raised. I’ll say no more. We then have the song which acts as the film’s final, emotional statement. I have no idea who performed it, but although it was packed with heartfelt sentiment it was pretty dreadful and the closing sequence would surely have been better served with an instrumental piece.
I don’t really think horror (or whatever you’d like to call it) has an intrinsic responsibility to portray minorities or alternative lifestyle choices in any particular light. Personally speaking I like to leave reality tied up outside before entering the hall… nonetheless, despite it being an ever so slightly grinding metaphor for sexual struggles, The Samurai is bold, adventurous and praiseworthy in many ways, and certainly deserves to be watched with an open mind.
The Samurai comes to UK DVD and on-demand on 13 April, from Peccadillo Pictures.