Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Lawbolisted Powerful

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

johnnyboyz Claude Chabrol's film, The Butcher, is a brooding, menacing character study held together by two central characters occupying the space of a small, French town and getting along overly well with one another. Each of them share respective back-stories which flit between being emotionally tragic and gut-wrenchingly unfortunate; stories most certainly enough to visibly shake either member of this pairing and, you'd hope, enough to affect even that of an outsider to these two people hearing of times gone by in each of these respective people's lives. One of the two people, Jean Yanne's character named Popaul, is the town's local butcher; a man whom has fought on the front-line of war and has consequently witnessed bloody warfare. He finds solace, now, in chopping up meat and serving it to the locals whereas prim primary school teacher Hélène (Audran) has settled down as a live-in headmistress at a respected school raising and teaching the young pupils whom frequent; this, after still coming to terms with a relationship with a man which, in her eyes, should have resulted in a consequent marriage and the bringing up of children.The film is about the duality the pair of them share in this sense, their ways of finding personal parity with what it is that's happened to them in their lives in the form of respective tragedies, and how their ideas of respective 'treatment' concurrently are actually lifestyles more eerily linked to that of the ingredients of what it was that upset them in the first place. It is a darkly brilliant piece, an intimate character study about two people moving closer to the items that have effectively made them the near-enough to a psychological wreck that they are; Hélène's process of keeping a happy face and effectively nurturing young children with their education and during field days the emotional proving to oneself that she can, in fact, play the mothering role. For Popaul, his demons more broadly linked to that of a the bloody war-field upon which he served time sees him draw upon a grotesque fascination with blood; an obsession which does not allow him to keep away from the sight he hates most and consequently sees him mutate into a serial killer.No doubt lending great inspiration to the later works of about ten years or so in Thomas Harris' Red Dragon, itself a film about an innocent woman coming to bond with a serial killing male, Chabrol's piece fits nicely into that cinematic canon of around about the time when serial killers were permitted to be among us, have lives as well as jobs and were most importantly, constructed as human beings whom carried with them flaws that made them who they were rather than being rendered faceless, mindless monsters. The American study of similar subsistence begins with Hitchcock's Psycho and flows all the way through to The Boston Strangler as the best of the time exploring said ideas.The film is, of course, about this serial killer but it is not so much preoccupied with whom it is that's carrying out the killings told from the perspective of police officers as much as it is how somebody completely unbeknownst to such techniques of detecting comes to innocently bond with such a beast. It is hardly revealing that Yanne plays such a character, such a fact is core to the film's experience. The film begins with a series of cave paintings, odd works of art occupying a dark and dingy dwelling as compositions of objects periodically arrive on our screens in a fashion which makes it near impossible to make out; that sense of a distorted psychosis or of an unbalanced psyche furthermore causing an unwavered or unfocused perspective prominent. What then happens is a cut to an establishing shot of a quaint French town, somewhere cut off from most places and seemingly basking in the glory of anonymity and processes of eventlessness; but there is trouble within. Within the town, a wedding plays out; a young couple getting married with joy and happiness appearing plentiful; the wedding eventually giving way not to the story of the bride or groom and their tribulations but to the two eventual leads sharing a walk away from such items as marriage, companionship, exuberance, triumph and whatnot.Amidst the beauty lies ugliness; a young woman has already been found murdered nearby shocking everyone within the radius, the establishing of the killer's apparent lust for the death of people of the victim's age and gender not boding well when we realise the film will come to stick with young Hélène. Chabrol makes us symptomatically aware of both Hélène's vulnerability and Popaul's apparent untrustworthiness by lingering on Hélène as she walks away down a street from a perspective which is difficult to label as Popaul's, but is no-less a composition which additionally lingers by his side, inferring that it is his gaze. What follows is a quite brilliant exploration of these two coming to form a tie with one another, a platonic attraction seeing Popaul once again become infatuated with something he is supposed to feel such disdain toward, the results of which are violent outbursts, while Hélène herself cannot quite come to break down demons linked to that of refraining to engage in relations following her past tragedy. It is an unnerving but brutally effective piece, a studying of a serial killer at large whom of course we want caught, but seemingly not if it means our protagonist, whom we've come to care for dearly, must suffer further set-backs to that of the one she did before. The film is swift and decisive, an agonising character study cutting through what it is that makes its two leads tick and doing so with ruthless efficiency.

paul2001sw-1 Given the overcooked nature of most modern thrillers, it's a pleasure to see what the late Claude Charbol could conjure out of a few simple elements. A sexy but abstemious young head teacher strikes up a friendship with a local butcher in a small French town; the first half of this movie is simply a character study, then someone dies and the story moves into darker territory, although steering clear of the mainstream ending. Although the soundtrack is dated, the way Charbol uses it is highly intelligent, subtly conveying a mood of menace; but ultimately this is a psychological study of a character less in control of her own life than she has liked to think. Perhaps the set-up is not completely convincing; but this is an intelligent movie, and one that rewards the viewer responding to it with an intelligence of their own.

Turfseer 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.

PizzicatoFishCrouch Amongst the guests at a wedding are a Helene, a lonely teacher, played by Stephane Audran, and an ex-army butcher (Jean Yanne). Against their differences, the two develop a friendship. However, in the town there lurks a serial killer, and that killer may or may not be the butcher himself. Plagued with feelings of doubt and fear, Helene finds herself constantly at tenterhooks regarding her new friend (of sorts), and surprises and shocks are placed intricately until the very last frames.At 90 minutes, this mystery feels longer than it is, and that may be due to some of the stylistic techniques adapted by director Chabrol, such as the languid and very sparse use of camera movement, and shots of the bells to contribute to a sense of time. Content-wise, he borrows from Hitchcock, using themes of shared secrets, obsession and moral ambiguity. These themes are used well, creating appropriate amounts of suspense and anticipation in the viewer, and Chabrol plays with his audience deftly, placing surprises and non-surprises in sequence so that we are every bit as nervy as Audran. He is less concerned with explaining the motives for the killings than just presenting them, and for that, and chilling atmosphere of indifference is created throughout the film.The two leads are strong in their performances, and the slow, fragile romance between them is as credible as it is integral to the plot. In particular, Stephane Audran shines, as a woman who begins, poised, content and assured, only to finish ruffled and perhaps, as the ending shot shows, a little ruined by the events that she has witnessed. The film is carried along by an eerie, quasi-apocalyptic score by Pierre Janse and Domonique Zardi, which haunts long after the film has ended.If the ending does feel like somewhat of a copout, that may because we as the audience have viewed one plot twist too many, and the frequency and slightness at which each twist is revealed diminishes its impact somewhat. But for the most part, this is good film-making; quite unpretentious, coolly aloof, and the subtle delivery only works to its advantage.B+