Le Boucher [1969] [DVD]

Le Boucher/The Butcher is one that falls into the love it or hate it camp. Certainly by modern standards, Claude Chabrol makes little of his premise - smalltown schoolteacher Stephane Audran falls for smalltown butcher and serial killer Jean Yanne - either as a suspense vehicle or moral drama. There are occasional hints of something deeper in the butcher's descriptions of the atrocities he saw in Algeria and IndoChina and which he has brought home with him to the outwardly idyllic backwater and scene of his unhappy childhood, but they're just left for the audience to make the connections. As usual, Chabrol is more interested in milieu than the crimes themselves, and his sense of place and community is impeccable without being forced, as his direction. Although the script is fairly thin, it perfectly captures the way comparative isolation and lack of diversion brings people into each other's spheres more than burning passion (in fact, Yanne reveals that it's her ability to calm his passions that makes her so special to him). And it's telling that the two characters never have a romance: they don't even share a kiss. It's more akin to a drawn-out old-fashioned courtship - it's just that one of them happens to be a serial killer.

One thing that is particularly striking is that way he is able to use long, unshowy takes (some lasting several minutes) simply because his actors are up to the challenge, giving the film an unforced, natural flow. There's imagination and striking imagery when required - the film's most tense moment takes place during a fade to black, while a night time drive takes on a disembodied quality - but he's not out to batter his audience with technique. Quietly impressive, but you may need to have lived in a small town to get the most out of it.

Arrow's UK PAL DVD does offer a better transfer than the US Pathfinder DVD in a slightly cropped widescreen ratio, but contains no extras.

I first saw "Le Boucher" at college when I found it in the video library there. I've been waiting ages for it to come out on DVD. This release has no extras, but the film is worth it.

Reminiscent of Hitchcock, the film tells the story of a teacher in a rural French village who begins to fall for the local butcher. But when several girls are murdered, events lead her to suspect him.

"Le Boucher" maintains a leisurely pace throughout that matches the pace of village life. Rather than relying on shocks, it builds tension and suspense - esp effective are the scenes of the schooltrip and the finale in the schoolhouse.

The scenery is beautiful, direction and performances subtle. Highly recommended

"The Butcher," ("Le boucher") (1969) is one of the best-known films of French director Claude Chabrol, (The Claude Chabrol Collection [DVD]), one of the leading lights of the French school of film-making known as the new wave (le nouvelle vague); he just passed quite recently. It's in full, gorgeous color, set in the lush, highly fertile, mountainous region of Perigord, France, and, aside from perhaps some clothes that look odd to a contemporary eye, has hardly dated at all. It's a cerebral, rather abstract drama/thriller, built along thoughtful, slower, European lines rather than fast, fast, fast American; still, it clocks in at a taut 93 minutes, and is considered to show the strong influence of Alfred Hitchcock, thriller director par excellence (Hitchcock 14 Disc Box Set [DVD]).

Elegantly beautiful Stephane Audran (La Femme Infidele [1968] [DVD]), Chabrol's reel- and real life muse, plays Helene, headmistress of the local elementary school, who lives above her shop. She is thin as a stylish woman should be, high of cheekbone, dressed in clothes that are evidently the height of contemporary chic, with her hair done by Carita. She loves the school's children and has good times with them. Nevertheless, she has never gotten over a bad previous relationship, and is repressed - and lonely. She finally, haltingly, begins an unlikely affair with the mysterious Popaul (Jean Yanne:Indochine [1991] [DVD] [1993] ). He has recently returned from the army and Vietnam to the village in which he was born and raised, to take over his father's butcher shop, which he too lives above. He is dour and working class, not particularly handsome, considered beneath her in village society; yet makes himself useful to her, gives her prime cuts of meat, paints her quarters. He becomes, in fact, her primary adult relationship - she really has no one else in her life --nor does he. However, soon local women turn up gruesomely slaughtered, in sadistic Jack the Ripper style. It appears that a serial killer has come to the vicinity, and Helene must begin to suspect the butcher.

The countryside, and the children, have been photographed with great affection and clarity. In addition to its truffles, mushrooms, and plentiful harvests, Perigord is also known for its colorful prehistoric cave paintings, and we see them too. The original, atmospheric score is by Pierre Jansen. Director Chabrol does a good job of building tension that mounts as Helene is forced to reach heart-breaking conclusions. It's a powerful film that is likely to stay with you for some time.