Very little happens, and all of the sordid criminal events take place off screen in Claude Chabrol's exquisitely detached and austerely abstract murder mystery set in the Perigord region of central France. At the centre of the intrigue is Chabrol's frequent collaborator and wife, Stephane Audran, who plays Mademoiselle Helene, .. Read more
| Starring | Stephane Audran, Jean Yanne, Antonio Passalia, Mario Beccaria |
|---|---|
| Director | Claude Chabrol |
| Genres | Thriller, World Cinema |
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Very little happens, and all of the sordid criminal events take place off screen in Claude Chabrol's exquisitely detached and austerely abstract murder mystery set in the Perigord region of central France. At the centre of the intrigue is Chabrol's frequent collaborator and wife, Stephane Audran, who plays Mademoiselle Helene, the beautiful and brash, yet shy and retiring local school teacher. As the film begins, Mlle. Helene is at a festive local wedding enjoying the company of brusque and earnest Popaul, the local butcher. Popaul speaks roughly of his bloody experiences as a soldier, yet shows a sentimental gentility towards Mlle. Helene. As the two engage in a sweet, if unlikely, courtship, the town falls victim to a serial killer who is brutally murdering local women--including the bride at the wedding. The atmosphere of the film becomes rife with subtle yet chilling suspense as Mlle. Helene simultaneously draws closer to Popaul, just as she is beginning to suspect him as the murderer. As the tension builds, so does the intricate interplay between the conflicting yet similar characters of Mlle. Helene and Popaul, resulting in a final explosion of violent acts.
| Starring | Stephane Audran, Jean Yanne, Antonio Passalia, Mario Beccaria |
|---|---|
| Director | Claude Chabrol |
| Studio | ARROW FILMS |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 29 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Thriller, World Cinema |
| Language | DVD: French |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 05 Jul 2004 Production year: 1969 |
| Format | DVD |
One of Claude Chabrol's most accomplished and celebrated films has the director returning to the provincial world of his first film Le Beau Serge a decade later. Chabrol's then wife, Stéphane Audran plays a village schoolteacher who gradually comes to realise that her new friend, a shy butcher (Jean Yanne), is the sex murderer the police are searching for. With certain nods to Chabrol's idol Alfred Hitchcock, the film is much more than a thriller — it's a sympathetic psychological study of sexual frustration. Supported by the actual inhabitants of the town in Périgord in which it is set, the two leads are superb. The film is brilliantly shot by Jean Rabier, Chabrol's usual cinematographer.
Classically simple but relentlessly probing thriller, set in a French village shadowed by the presence of a compulsive... read more on Time Out
...so to speak.
Anyway that's a large part of the movie's appeal for me.
But okay the serial killer plot works for me too, for the time and place.
But it's not a dumb slasher, that's the point. It's thoughtful, slow but not boring, the characters are believable, the small rural French village life is depicted in a really nice realistic yet quirky way...
I recommend that you read my favorite film critic's essay about it:
http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/gr eatmovies/leboucher.html
Le Boucher is an atmospheric thriller, in the style of Hitchcock but set in a milieu not visited by Hitchcock: a French village where everyone knows everyone else. Chabrol's wife Stephane Audran plays Helene, an attractive schoolteacher, popular with children and adults alike. The local butcher, recently back from the war in Algeria, begins a chaste courtship, wooing Helene with choice cuts of beef and lamb.
But another kind of butchery comes to the village. Find out for yourself...