Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a curious addition to the filmography of Jim Jarmusch. However, its style and fascination with various juxtapositions create the type of film that only could come from the mind of Jarmusch. The film begins as we follow Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker) as he walks around a nameless city (located in a place only known as “The Industrialized State” by the license plates). He steals a car using a card reader device (one of the many homages to Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai) and drives to his destination to assassinate a gangster. Much like Alain Delon in Le Samourai, he is cool and meticulous about who he is and what he does. As the film progresses, we slowly learn a couple of odd details about the character of Ghost Dog—he lives on a rooftop, he communicates to his boss solely through passenger pigeons, he demands payment once a year on the first day of autumn, he lives by a strict code of the samurai. All these traits seem very strange, an opinion also shared by Ghost Dog’s boss, a local mobster who once saved Ghost Dog’s life. However, he accepts Ghost Dog’s eccentricities because he is an impeccable contract killer.Jarmusch seems interested in creating a melting pot of styles and cultures, all seemingly ready to clash against one another. Even though Ghost Dog lives strictly by an ancient code of the samurai, he also lives in an urban jungle and has seemingly unlimited access to an endless cache of weapons and modern technology such as his carjacking card reader. His best friend is a Haitian ice cream vendor (played by Jarmusch regular Isaach De Bankolé), but Ghost Dog doesn’t know a word of French and the vendor doesn’t know any English. As with most Jarmusch films, characters often speak in a deadpan fashion, not giving much away through their words. It’s these type of oddities that become the life force of the movie, and it poses some curious questions that permeates throughout the movie—how are we defined by the culture around us? It may be an obvious question, but it’s one that the main character seems to face and struggle with at every turn. Even the end of the film (spoilers), Ghost Dog’s strict adherence to the code is what ultimately brings his downfall, even when he refuses to use to simple resources provided to him by the modern world in which he lives in. However, it’s clear that Jarmusch seems to side with Whitaker’s character, a sort of man out of time, both emotionally and quite literally by the end. In the title role, Whitaker does an excellent job portraying the introspective hitman, playing him with a quiet menace and determination, all while earning our sympathy by hinting at a deep sadness to his character. The soundtrack by The RZA is also largely excellent, enhancing the cool atmosphere of the film.
While the film doesn’t always work from a logistical standpoint, it seems to work better if viewed as a piece of music or visual poem. Jarmusch seems to also treat the film instinctively, where the rhythms and beats of the characters seem to ebb and flow with the atmosphere of the world around them. There are times where the stylistic aspects seem to envelop the characters, while other times we see Italian gangsters extolling the virtues of Flavor Flav. The film seems to relish in the realm of juxtaposition—Eastern vs. Western culture, gangsters films vs. samurai films, and sly comments on race, technology and language. Jarmusch is clearly having fun in seeing how all these cultures tie together, and while the film may not hold up to his very best work, it’s also not hard to get lost in the atmosphere.
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