ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

morrison-dylan-fan After watching the stylish 1959 movie À double tour,I started talking to a fellow IMDber about the work of auteur film maker Claude Chabrol. Receiving a rec for another Chabrol title,I tracked down the DVD on Ebay,and get ready to have a butchers at Chabrol.The plot:Attending a wedding,school teacher Hélène meets Paul Thomas,who is a butcher in the small town.Still hurt by the pain from her past relationship, Hélène keeps things at a platonic level with Thomas,who drops his guard,and begins to open up to Hélène about the horrors he saw in war.Whilst getting close to Thomas, Hélène takes her class out on a field trip,who soon discover that a serial killer is butchering the town.View on the film:Opening in a cave,writer/director Claude Chabrol and cinematographer Jean Rabier boil the film down to its starkest elements,with the yellow and reds in Hélène's house being rubbed into a dour paste.Following Hélène & Thomas in restrained whip- pans,Chabrol cuts around Thriller chills by cutting into a subtly stylish study of modern masculinity,by making the limited shots of blood take man back from the bourgeoisie of the present to the primal instinct of the past.Displaying on focus on the psychologically dramatic,the screenplay by Chabrol dissects Hélène and Thomas's attempts to find a fitting in modern society,which is sliced from Thomas giving his butchering work over to Hélène like a bunch of flowers,to Hélène doing the "old fashion" holidays that the pretty young things view as something almost as old as cave paintings. Simmering with unease over the final flame, Chabrol cuts around tension and bubbling thrills to explore modern masculinity,which whilst elegantly delivered does pull the title into a rather dry direction,via keeping Hélène and Thomas's relationship in a stilted position draining the drops of dangerous atmosphere from the film,as Thomas shows Hélène his real butchery skills.

seymourblack-1 Claude Chabrol's "Le Boucher" is a quiet, subtle and utterly absorbing psychological thriller about a couple who, at first glance, seem to be conventional, respectable and very well adjusted. It gradually becomes clear, however, that they're both emotionally and psychologically damaged in different ways and their friendship triggers unexpected impulses that eventually bring both trauma and tragedy to their peaceful village. The village is called Tremolat and is situated in the Pericord region of France.Helene (Stephane Audran), the headmistress of the village school and Popaul (Jean Yanne) the local butcher, meet at a wedding party and enjoy each other's company. As their friendship develops it emerges that Helene is dedicated to her work, well-liked by her pupils and highly respected by the people of Tremolat. Popaul has recently returned to the village after spending 15 years in the Army and has inherited the butcher shop following his father's death.Popaul seems gentle and friendly and gives Helene specially selected joints of lamb from his shop and is pleased to help with any work that needs doing in the school building. As a child he'd been abused by his father and during his Army career had seen countless horrific incidents. He tells Helene that he saw many terrible things that are too awful to describe and it's obvious just how profoundly his experiences have affected him.Popaul is desperate for his friendship with Helene to develop into a romance but when he discusses this with her, she tells him that following a relationship that she had 10 years before, she was left so hurt that she couldn't ever consider getting involved with anyone else in that way again. Popaul accepts the situation and they continue their friendship which remains purely platonic.During this period, the normal tranquillity of Tremolat is shattered when a young woman is murdered and her body is found at a location close to the village. Helene has the misfortune to discover a second body during a school trip with her pupils and is shocked to discover a cigarette lighter close by which is identical to one that she'd given to Popaul as a present. She, without hesitation, keeps the lighter and later goes through periods during which other developments lead her to believe initially in his guilt, then later in his innocence and finally in his guilt again before their story reaches its tragic denouement.The traumatic things that happened to Helene and Popaul in their pasts and the ways in which they responded to them were clearly beyond their control. Similarly, at the outset, it would have been impossible for either of them to predict how their relationship might ultimately become responsible for inflaming certain impulses that led to a series of violent deaths in their community. They are unquestionably victims whose actions led to dreadful results and caused them tremendous despair.Stephane Audran is wonderfully enigmatic as the beautiful, cool and seemingly very composed teacher who always appears to be the stronger partner in the relationship and Jean Yanne is also excellent as her very devoted but troubled friend."Le Boucher" is unsettling, thought provoking and rich in atmosphere but also unusual in the way that it combines, so effectively, a very simple plot with so much depth, poignancy and sensitivity This is a work of considerable substance that is totally captivating and a great credit to its writer and director, Claude Chabrol.

MisterWhiplash Claude Chabrol, the French director of many thrillers and dramas and other genres, is at his best when subtly but forcefully pulling the rug out from the viewer. This isn't your usual case of a romance story criss-crossed with a serial killer thriller. In fact, we're not made very much aware that there is a serial killer- save for a few mentions here and there- until halfway through the movie, and by the time we are it's full-throttle in a kind of expertly manipulated suspense, not in the usual sense but through an ominous musical score by Pierre Jansen and a movement of fluidity with the camera that tells the story sort of conventionally but not at the same time. It's a small, master's class in subverting the genre by making us care so much about the characters even as we know they're doomed from the happy opening.That's not to say that Chabrol has made anything that can't be enjoyed by one looking for a good entertaining thriller first and foremost. If anything the opening of the movie is what lures one in perfectly, as it's a very jovial in this wedding sequence one sees guests school-teacher Helene (Stephane Audran, Chabrol regular) and butcher Paul (Jean Yanne, perfect as the butcher), enjoying themselves and making good conversation. This stretches out into the first half of the film; a friendship develops around food that Paul brings over, and it's only when Paul thinks its time to go the 'next step' that he's told it can't be because of a past horrible relationship that Helen faced- horrible in the sense of disappointment. There's a disconnect emotionally that is left open, thus, going into the second half of the film, where finally we see what some of us would be waiting for: the serial killer plot.There's a string of murders involving women, and one of them- the bride from the opening- is a shocker not exactly for the revelation itself, per-say, but how Chabrol builds up to it. At first it's seen as the most suspenseful thing in the film so far as Helen leads her class along a mountainside and stops to have lunch. The music is playing right here, and it's really chilling for how simple it lays out the tension, like a weirdo standing across the street in a black cloak acting suspicious but, at the same time, too subtle to pin down. This adds to the sudden shock, then, after the music stops and finally the reveal happens via blood dripping on the kid's sandwich. This, however, is just one example of Chabrol's calm mastery as a director of the material.It would be one thing to go on and on about the eerie absorption of the camera-work, which goes between conventional stylization (for a French film of the period) and poetic editing and framing. Or to go on and on about the stunning work turned by Audran (going between an entire emotional palette, as it were, from happy to sobbing to frightened to pale and shot to hell) and Yanne (also great at what he's meant to be, our male protagonist and, sadly, eventual antagonist by default). But it's the emotional struggle that makes this compelling above all other good reasons to recommend.The Butcher posits a relationship that is platonic, naturalistic, and genuinely interesting; these aren't cookie-cutter characters but well-drawn and with things that make them identifiable even as they, early on, seem to go on about trivial things not related to the plot (a little like a Woody Allen movie). Then, when it switches gears bit by bit and the paranoia increases, by the time the climax comes it becomes very, ultimately, tragic. Chabrol goes to lengths to reveal, simply, the soul of a man one should not feel any sympathy for. That one close-up in the car ride to the hospital is one of the finest climaxes I might ever see in a movie from Europe, even anywhere. And damned if isn't representative of what Chabrol can do as a craftier but no less true-to-his-art member of the Cashier du cinema filmmaker club. A+

Shane James Bordas Hitchcock comparisons abound with Chabrol. However, you may be hard pressed to see anything other than a superficial similarity between them here.Although nicely acted and crafted, 'Le Boucher' has a curious sense of disengagement that will either fascinate or frustrate viewers. While not necessarily a bad thing in itself, this can also give the impression of a lack of depth. It's hard to fully discern what the character motivations are so, depending on your proclivity, you are likely to become either enthralled or disinterested in what they might actually be.Viewers familiar with Francois Truffaut will notice some similarities in approach but Chabrol lacks the concise poetry of that other French great. Even though the opening wedding sequence nicely sets up a scene of normality for the events that follow, it's rather overlong and a more Hitchcockian terseness would certainly have helped. Still, the film does have a strange charm and there are some excellent character ideas regarding the schoolteacher (content with her celibacy long after a bad relationship) being seduced? threatened? by the promise of new love from the local butcher - who may or may not be a murderer. These threads are either unexplored or deliberately withheld, depending on your point of view.A worthwhile watch for those interested but, possibly, not quite the masterpiece some might lead you to believe it is.