Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 14-June-09
Spoiler Rating: High

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (2000)

It is bad when one thing becomes two.

This bit of wisdom appears early in Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Throughout the picture, excerpts from the samurai manual read, re-read, and followed to the letter by the eponymous hero are offered for the delectation of the audience. Some are deep, some practical, and some bewildering in the aggravating fashion of Asian philosophy. In this case the point is refuted by the movie itself. For Ghost Dog is two things at once, and that is altogether wonderful.

In a quiet but memorable performance, Forest Whitaker stars as a New York hit man whose perfect record is marred by a slightly botched assassination. Although it was not his fault, his employers decide that he must be eradicated to clean up the mess, so he decides that he has to take them down. Guys bumping each other off is not usually the stuff of mirth, but like Fight Club before it Ghost Dog mixes life meditations and violence with seriously funny comedy. In one scene a flustered mafioso (John Tormey) tries to explain to his incredulous associates how he once saved a black kid's life, received the boy's fidelity in return, and now arranges hits with the grown retainer called Ghost Dog solely by means of a carrier pigeon. The Italians in this film are prosaic losers who spend most of their time watching cartoons. They do not appreciate having an unorthodox or romantic (or African-American) figure in their midst, which is all the more reason to whack him.

The mafia should understand Ghost Dog, though, since in essence they are alike. Images of Whitaker engaged in samurai training initially suggest that his path leads to cool, but Jarmusch ultimately discredits any creed that does not work anymore, and maybe never did. Like that of the mafia, the way of the samurai is hampered by unthinking loyalty that leads to death (and, in the Italians' case, a complete lack of imagination). Ghost Dog is far cooler than his enemy buffoons, and his intense devotion argues that some people need codes of honor to get through life. But what kind of life does he have? His best friend (Isaach De Bankolé) is a recent immigrant from some French-speaking nation who does not know a word of English and cannot communicate with him except by gesture. While this friend is without ties and effectively cut off from the world, he appears to be much more a part of it than Ghost Dog. He is an ice cream seller, the antithesis of a hit man, who embraces life with a broad grin and a firm belief in the unifying power of chocolate. What code of honor does he need? He will grow old and die still smiling.

The ice cream man watches Ghost Dog's loneliness with the same sorrow as we do. But we can have our dessert and eat it too. Side by side with the melancholy of a warrior who brings forgotten faith to the streets of Gotham is hearty amusement at the silliness of his too-narrow world.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.