Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Ancient and the New, June 30, 2002
Superb. Excellent. And every other superlative you can think of.
Funny how when you see a bad or flawed movie you are full of words but in the presaence of a masterpiece you are speechless. From the beginning sequence in caves while the credits roll to the final scene of Stephane Audran by the sea you are speechless as before a painting which captures an ineffable mystery.
Most of Chabrol films involve the wealthy but this one follows two very humble lives in a rural French village near the mountains. The town butcher meets the schools headmistress at a mutual friends wedding and from there on the film follows their unusual courtship. He served in the military for 15 years and has seen his fill of bloodshed and waste and as a result he has aquired a rather maudlin view of life. She suffered heartbreak 10 years previous to their meeting and has kept her distance from men ever since. But then they meet and there is an immediate attraction beyond eithers control. The caves that Chabrol so evocatively photographs and which the headmistress provides a rather intriguing commentary on link the everyday goings on of life in the village with human natures primitive past. Meanwhile somewhere in the countryside a murderer runs loose. Chabrol like the master that he is suggests more than he tells. The viewer is given a rich assortment of things to meditate upon and many interesting paths to follow but the atmosphere of the film remains the real allure of this perfectly structured study of two lives. The atmosphere is created with music, excellent cinematography including some astounding long views of the mountain valley at different times of the day, and those interiors with the cave drawings which are echoed in Stephane Audrans apartment which is lined with prints and paintings. The mystery at the heart of this is the mystery of human nature. if you love Chabrol there is no more essential film in his catalogue than this one. If you love French film this was called "the most important french film since the liberation" by Le Figaro and if you just love film this will become a savoured gem in your collection.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
DVD info, May 23, 2003
According to the packaging this DVD is meant to be letter-boxed (enhanced for 16X9 televisions). Yes and no. On my up-scale DVD player the DVD projects in full-screen mode. Like most DVD players in the U.S. there is no X-Y feature to correct this. My odd ball brand region-free DVD player does, however, play the DVD in letterbox (though it needed quite a lot of correcting using the X-Y feature). Go figure. Since the film is a wide aspect ratio (the packaging doesn't state the ratio but I'm guessing somewhere around 2.7:1) it is very important that it be viewed letterbox. The DVD has an audio commentary delivered by a couple film school teachers who spend a little too much time entertaining each other, though I've heard much worse commentaries on much more expensive DVDs. The only other special feature is a trailer. Obviously I'm rating the DVD high on the basis of the film alone. Le Boucher is a great film. Chabrol's films frequently have a plot arch that is virtually flat. Everybody compares Chabrol to Hitchcock, and there are certainly plenty of visual references to Hitchcock, but Hitchcock would never tell stories this way, without melodrama, about people this irredeemably emotionally blunted. (IMDB has some reviews of this film that miss the point that the teach Helene is every bit as evil as the butcher.) Not every Chabrol film works for me every viewing but I've never been able to turn away when watching this film.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Inevitably, Bad Things Happen, July 2, 2005
Helene Daville (Stephane Audran) is the school mistress in Tremolat, a quiet village in the Perigord region of France. She's a confident, attractive woman who had a love affair ten years ago and who now has no desire to become enmeshed again. Popaul Thomas (Jean Yanne) is the village butcher. He spent 15 years in the army serving in Indochina and Algeria. He's seen things he doesn't care to talk about. At a wedding they meet and become friends. He is strongly attracted to her, and brings her presents of choice cuts of meat. She likes him, even cares for him in a way, but resists anything more intimate. Then young women are found butchered in the region.
This really isn't a mystery movie and it isn't a tedious psychological drama. The way in which these two people are drawn to each other is at once curious and intriguing. Is Helene a woman who will put herself in danger because she is able to feel so few other things? Is Popaul simply a man who wants more than he has or is he a serial murderer? If he is a murderer, on what levels is he guilty? How deep are the feelings and complexities within Helene as, at one point, she keeps hidden a piece of evidence that could point to the murderer?
I found the movie consistently involving but not one that had me either guessing or emotionally engaged. Audran and Yanne both give outstanding performances. Audran's character seems cool and in control, but she unexpectedly shows deeper feelings, especially when she is dealing with the students in her charge. Yanne looks a little like 80 per cent Mel Gibson and 20 per cent Andy Kaufman. Popaul comes across as an entirely competent man, able to handle whatever might come his way. But at the same time there is a wounded vulnerability about him that can create uneasy feelings. And for old car fans, Helene Daville drives a Citroen 2CV, a model no longer made. It was the French equivalent of the old VW, cheap to buy, reliable, and easy to fix if anything went wrong. It's so ugly a car it has great style.
I thought the movie was involving and well worth watching. The DVD transfer, while not bad, could have used some work.
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