Disturbing yet enthralling

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

An unlikely friendship between a dour, working class butcher (Jean Yanne) and a repressed schoolteacher (Stéphane Audran) coincides with a grisly series of Ripper-type murders in a provincial French town.Jean Yanne had been around for awhile, appearing in "Week End", directed by Jean-Luc Godard, among others. Stéphane Audran may be more notable; her first major role was in Chabrol's film "Les Cousins" (1959) and she has since appeared in most of Chabrol's films. After "Le Boucher", she went on to appear in international successes like "Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie" (1972) and "Babette's Feast" (1987).The title is clever in that it references both a butcher (meaning the occupation) and a butcher (meaning a killer). And, possibly, the two are the same person. But that is the extent of the thrill -- is it or is it not the same person? This is not your American thriller. The scares and violence are quite toned down... it is more about the dread of worrying who your friends are.

Le Boucher is one of Claude Chabrol's most underrated films since it seemed to get away from the recent string of French New Wave films of the 60s. When I first saw this, it caught me out of nowhere and was a little too much for me to take in at one viewing. A lot of films do that to me. Luckily this one demands to be seen again, even after you know what happens. This is a character study as well as an excellent example of films' possibilities. Le Boucher (French for The Butcher) is a romance, drama, horror, and thriller, all rolled into one. The majority of the time, movies that handle all these different genres don't have a clear-cut way of executing them. This has a way of handling it all that is just right and so original. Le Boucher takes place in a small town in France that resembles a time before. The town has stayed historic. We meet our two main characters at a wedding ceremony. Well-loved school teacher and headmistress Hélène, and war veteran and career butcher Popaul (Paul) are the characters in an-almost two-character film. They really hit it off and Paul falls for her. But she got out of a bad relationship ten years earlier that took such a toll on her that she is still not ready for a relationship. On his birthday, she gives him a lighter: a motif. So far, the film is a light-hearted romance. We hear about some of the horrors that Paul witnessed in war and we hope that they get together. Both would benefit from each other. When Hélène tells him that she wants everything to be platonic, we wish for her to change her mind. Then the film switches directions...Early on, cops say that a woman has been murdered. She wasn't raped which makes it a little bizarre. That's about as far as it goes when they talk about it. It's brief, but we all know it will be revisited in some form or another. Oddly, we are not too concerned with a recent murder, just with our main characters. Hélène takes her class on a field trip to a cave area on a mountain in a scene set up perfectly. This is when the film switches gears. It looks like the roof will cave in on the students, or that they will fall off the edge at any second. But a tiny bit of blood drips on a student, the camera then shows a bloody hand on the edge of a higher part of the cliff. She goes to check it out, but the corpse is very briefly shown and the audience is still freaked out. The victim was the bride at the beginning of the film. She finds Paul's lighter, so we know that it's him. He still tries to get with her, but there is tension: she is scared that he may kill and he is scared that he may be prone to kill. The final act is a horror-thriller, but mainly the latter. He finds out that she knows that he's the culprit in the series of murders and he finds a need to explain. She lives in an apartment just above the school where she teaches and she tries to flee him off while he worms his way through the school to her. This is when the audience finds out Paul's motives that really gets them to think. Paul is a butcher, he saw grizzly death in war and obviously killed some soldiers too. He has been around death for so long. It is also obvious that he has some PTSD, but he also loves Hélène. His murders to women were his own bizarre way of expressing himself. Is it a stupid way? Of course, but Paul feels the need to assert his masculinity through physicality and he is near death all the time and has PTSD. So his motive is entirely believable and our heart goes out. We wonder if he will kill Hélène or himself. He stabs himself, and a scared Hélène is frightened about what Paul may do next, but is also turned on and impressed by Paul going through such savage acts just for her. In a way, she provoked him. So is she the real villain?Although this is not much of a French New Wave film, it does have enough elements to be identified as one. The use of natural lighting and on-location is perfect. And one of the perfect aspects is the music. It is at the same level as Jaws and Halloween. And, of course, the actors are stellar. They make a character study out of a wildly meshed-together genre film. Not only was the film very well-done, it has a lasting impact on the characters. Who these characters are, and what their statuses are in terms of humanity are some things that make you think long after the movie ends.The movie is so bizarre, so original, and so great!

The title of this French film was easy to translate, I did not know anything about the plot or anything, but I was going to watch it because it featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, directed by Claude Chabrol (Ophélia, Story of Women). Basically in the small rural French village of Tremolat, Périgord, confident and slightly naive young school teacher Hélène (Stéphane Audran, Chabrol's then wife) is lonely, one day she meets war veteran and local butcher Paul Thomas, or "Popaul" (Jean Yanne) at the wedding party of her colleague Léon Hamel (Mario Beccara). Hélène is happy to be friends and have a platonic relationship with Popaul, but she is still recovering from the disillusionment of her last relationship, at his birthday as a gift she gives him a lighter. On a school class excursion to a cave in the woods, Hélène finds the body of a murdered woman, victim to a serial killer, she realises it is Leon's wife, she also finds Popaul's lighter at the crime scene, but takes it and hides the evidence from the police. Hélène is relieved to see Popaul visiting her still has his own lighter, but her suspicions of him crop up again when he is painting her house ceiling, and another discovery affects her sense of security, however they begin to pursue a more close relationship. Hélène enjoys the company of Popaul, and it seems she would do anything for him as their relationship deepens, but she cannot ignore the fact that there are unexplained murders of women occurring in the village. Also starring Antonio Passalia as Angelo, Pascal Ferone as Uncle Cahrpy, Roger Rudel as Police Inspector Grumbach and William Guérault as Charles. The relationship between the teacher and the suspicious man who may be a sex murderer is interesting to see play out, with two great leading stars, you are unsure as much as she is whether he can be trusted, there is not a lot of bloody violence, it is simply an examination of how suspicion can change things in a relationship, like a Hitchcock film would, and also a study of sexual frustration, a great thriller style psychological drama. Good!

Le Boucher is billed as a thriller about a serial killer in a small, provincial French town. It's won accolades as a classic art film and its director, Claude Chabrol, has been compared to Hitchcock in his heyday. For those who are expecting to see another classic 'art film' or something akin to a scary, suspenseful Hitchcock film, you will be disappointed.The plot of Le Boucher is pretty basic. Stephane Audran plays Helene, an attractive woman in her late 30s, who is a primary schoolteacher in a small French town. At the wedding of one of her colleagues at the school, Leon, she meets Popaul, an Army veteran and local butcher. Helene is coming off a failed relationship and has retreated to the countryside, in order to avoid any future entanglements. Popaul immediately begins courting Helene and ends up making dinner for her, utilizing a fine choice cut of meat he brings from his butcher shop. At one point, Popaul shows up at Helene's school where she's teaching a class. He makes some inappropriate remarks in front of the children and for some reason, no red flags are raised in Helene's eyes.The relationship between Helene and Popaul continues to develop but finally Helene makes it clear that she's not interested in a physical relationship. Meanwhile, the police have begun investigating the first of a series of murders of young women in the town. Helene takes her school children on a class trip first to a cave where the group marvels at paintings created by ancient cave dwellers. On the way back, Helene and the children stop beneath an overhanging cliff and some blood drips from above on one of the children's' faces. Helene climbs up the hill and discovers Leon's wife's body, obviously murdered. Next to the body is a lighter which she had given Popaul as a birthday gift.There aren't many thrills and chills after that. Helene inexplicably fails to notify the police despite knowledge about the murders but also attempts to avoid Popaul. He finally confronts Helene inside the school house and menaces her with a knife. At the very moment that you believe he is going to kill Helene, the screen blacks out, and the next you know, the knife is sticking inside Popaul's stomach. It appears that this is a suicide attempt. Helene coolly drives Popaul to the hospital, where he expires.Chabrol never makes it clear why Helene decides not to cooperate with the police and eventually turn Popaul in. She seems to be a bright and educated woman and you would think that she would be especially horrified that Popaul murdered her colleague's wife. But she does nothing. Some reviewers interpret the final scene as Helene being the one who ended up killing Popaul; others sense Helene is satisfied after she learns from the doctor that Popaul has died. If that's true, Chabrol is perhaps suggesting that Helene has ambivalent feelings about Popaul. On one hand, she wants to give him the 'chance' of surviving by driving him to the hospital; on the other hand, she's relieved when he dies, since deep down she knows he's a monster. If in fact Helene is ambivalent about Popaul, Chabrol is deliberately choosing to be enigmatic. He hasn't provided us with enough reasons for Helene's ambivalence and it makes Helene's character unsympathetic, since her failure to notify the police, is a clear moral lapse.Le Boucher is perhaps best in capturing the atmosphere in a French provincial town. The acting is low-key but certainly noteworthy. Nonetheless, one waits in vain for something really dramatic to happen. When we finally get to the denouement, we already know that Popaul is the killer, and his suicide is a let-down. Couldn't there have been a little bit more of a surprise ending? On the basis of this film, I don't know why Chabrol has been compared to Hitchcock as the film lacks the necessary suspense to be included in the Hitchcock pantheon.