Claude Chabrol's international reputation was cemented by a sequence of enduring films dating from the late sixties and early seventies, of which "Le Boucher" is one of the most famous. The influence of Henri-Georges Clouzot is apparent here, the provincial school setting recalling "Les Diaboliques". "Le Boucher" though, is first and foremost quintessential Chabrol, and as such it's less concerned with plotting than either Clouzot or Hitchcock, another cinematic forebear, the focus more specifically being the interior psychological states of his protagonists.<br /><br />Helene (Stéphane Audran) and Popaul (Jean Yanne) meet at a wedding and strike up an instant friendship. She's the local schoolmistress and he's the village butcher, recently returned from 15 years in the army having served in Algeria and Indochina. He's evidently scarred by the violence he's seen and also by his relationship with a cold, unloving father who seemed to be the reason he left France in the first place. Helene too bears scars from the past, apparently dating back to a relationship ten years previously which ended badly, the trauma forestalling any further emotional entanglements. Thus, Helene and Popaul become tentatively attached without any subsequent physical consummation of their relationship. Against the backdrop of this, a series of killings of young women is taking place in the vicinity, and Helene has reason to believe that Popaul may be responsible. Yet curiously, she doesn't inform the police of her suspicions, nor does she confront Popaul. While she may be in some danger, therefore, a deeper suspicion lurks that she has undisclosed, perhaps unconscious, reasons of her own for continuing the friendship.<br /><br />Typically, Chabrol isn't terribly interested in providing explicit explanations for the choices that his characters make, or the actions they carry out. Nor does he seem too concerned with the mechanics of suspense, preferring to conjure an omnipresent atmosphere of unease through subtle use of camera placement and a pared down script in which what remains unsaid hangs pregnantly over proceedings. The extensive use of locations in the Dordogne region provides a naturalistic feel, into which Audran and Yanne blend effortlessly. Each convincingly inhabits the bodies of these introverted characters whose amiable, worldly personae mask troubled interior lives that one can really only guess at. This obscurity is less frustrating than it is fascinating, however, because Chabrol is a master of pacing and mood, and he knows not only how to keep an audience gripped right to the end, but also how to haunt them afterwards.