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!
Review of The Butcher
