Le Boucher (The Butcher)

The late Claude Chabrol, seen as perhaps the most 'mainstream' of the key new wave directors, made this fine little film in 1970. Wr found it precidely at the axis of the point where Alfred Hitchcock and Luis Bunuel intersect.
The Hitchockian elements; that is the slow build up of tension, the atmosphere of creeking unease. We don't have the Bernard Hermann brass band, but from the very beginning the soundtrack gives us a presentiment. Indeed, there is something slightly delicious of the violence here. The viewer feels a glee at picking it apart, a kind of fun in the violence. There is a sharp little stab of black humour here, very Hitchcockian.
The Luis Bunuel line is the flat surface where tensions boil, but are ultimately completely unseen. The way the characters are manipulating each other, putting each other to horrendous acts, but there is no sign of anything. This cool surface, in the way they walk and the muted, bare sets of the small town, give us a film of surfaces, which makes the viewer wish to really examine the whole screen.
There are a couple of nice twists, and some excellent shots at the end, particularly on the trolley. This was a great personal device, the difference and closeness in tone really bringing out strong emphasis. They, like the film as a whole, was a stab of real pleasure and interest.