Le Boucher/The Butcher is one that falls into the love it or hate it camp. Certainly by modern standards, Claude Chabrol makes little of his premise  small town schoolteacher Stephane Audran falls for small town butcher and serial killer Jean Yanne  either as a suspense vehicle or moral drama. There are occasional hints of something deeper in the butcher's descriptions of the atrocities he saw in Algeria and IndoChina and which he has brought home with him to the idyllic backwater and scene of his unhappy childhood, but they're just left for the audience to make the connections. As usual, Chabrol is more interested in milieu than the crimes themselves, and his sense of place and community is impeccable without being forced, as his direction. One thing that is particularly striking is that he is able to use long, unshowy takes (some lasting several minutes) simply because his actors are up to the challenge, giving the film an unforced, natural flow. There's imagination and striking imagery when required  the film's most tense moment takes place during a fade to black, while a night time drive takes on a disembodied quality  but he's not out to batter his audience with technique. Quietly impressive, but you may need to have lived in a small town to get the most out of it.