Le Boucher, 1969
[The Butcher]
The
discordant opening music of Le Boucher
accompanies a series of curious limestone cave formations, and serves
as a harbinger for the tragic events which are to unfold in this
idyllic French countryside. Helene (Stephane Audran) is a beautiful,
sophisticated school headmistress who moved to the region after
a failed relationship. Popaul (Jean Yanne) has recently returned
to his hometown after serving 15 years in the French army to assume
responsibilities for his late father's butcher shop. During the
wedding of Helene's colleague, Leon Hamel (Mario Beccara), Helene
and Popaul form an immediate bond, fueled in part by alcohol, but
also by mutual loneliness. Most of their free time is spent together:
having dinner, going to the movies, hunting for mushrooms. They
are both emotionally scarred: Helene, abandoned by her former lover,
and Popaul, abused by his cruel father and a witness to the atrocities
of war. As Popaul struggles to bury his troubled past, Helene also
suppresses her pain by becoming emotionally withdrawn, unwilling
to invest in a romantic relationship. Meanwhile, two savage murders
are committed: the first, at the neighboring town of St. Albert;
the second, by a cave at the outskirts of town. As the specter of
death hovers ever closer to their quaint small town, can Helene
and Popaul break free from their subconscious confines and find
love and companionship in each other? Or will the killer surface
within the community, threatening to destroy the fragile relationship
between these two fractured souls?
Claude Chabrol crafts a taut and poignant tale of emotional damage
in Le Boucher. Symbolically, the
relational distance between Helene and Popaul is suggested through
windows (as in Kieslowski's Red):
Helene looks out from her studio above the school after their first
encounter, Popaul looks into Helene's classroom, delivering a fresh
cut of veal from the butcher shop, Popaul peers through the window
of an unlit room in search of Helene. Furthermore, Popaul's preference
for a lowered, student's chair in the studio also reflects Helene's
unattainability for him, as he shyly looks up to see her face, trying
to find connection in her polite countenance. Le Boucher is a subtly
haunting portrait of people who are incapable of exorcising their
own private demons - inflicting emotional violence behind a facade
of civility - and, in the process, destroy themselves.
© Acquarello 2000. All rights reserved.
A
young woman named Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) is interviewed for
a housekeeping position at the country estate of Catherine Lelievre
(Jacqueline Bisset) and her family. Sophie is enigmatically succinct
in her answers, but her references are highly complimentary, and
she is immediately offered the job. However, from the onset, it
is evident that there is something odd about Sophie's behavior.
She has an instinctive, patent response of "I don't know"
to most questions, even when the answer does not apply. She refuses
to dust the books in the library, despite keeping the rest of the
house impeccably clean. She prefers to wash the dishes by hand instead
of using the dishwasher. When she is given the opportunity to take
driving lessons, she claims to have poor vision and declines the
offer. Georges Lelievre (Jean-Pierre Cassel) sends her to an optometrist
for an eye examination, but she avoids the appointment, and spends
the afternoon shopping around town. One day, she is left a note
on the kitchen table, and truth becomes evident - Sophie cannot
read. In attempt to conceal her illiteracy from everyone, she becomes
increasingly withdrawn from her employers, and the deception and
lies compound. Inevitably, her friendship with an eccentric, interfering
postal worker named Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), a woman of dubious
character, grows unnaturally close, and the relationship leads to
an incomprehensible act.