- An unlikely friendship between a dour, working class butcher and a repressed schoolteacher coincides with a grisly series of Ripper-type murders in a provincial French town.
- Butcher Popaul meets schoolteacher Helene at a wedding in a small rural French village. They become friends. But girls are murdered in the area and Helene finds at the scene the lighter she gave Popaul...—Yepok
- In the village of Tremolat, Périgord, the lonely headmistress Helene befriends the local butcher Popaul at the wedding party of her colleague, Leon Hamel. In spite of their friendship, they do not become lovers as Helene is still recovering from the disillusionment of her last relationship. On Popaul's birthday, Helene gives him a lighter as a gift. During the excursion with her class to a cave in the woods, Helene finds the latest victim of a serial killer that is stabbing young women in the area. She realizes that the woman is Leon's wife and she finds Popaul's lighter at the crime scene but she hides the evidence from the police. When Popaul visits her, she discovers that he still has the lighter and she feels relieved. However, when Popaul paints the ceiling of her house, she makes a discovery that affects her sense of security.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- "Le Boucher" (The Butcher) starts with a wedding ceremony in which Paul, a war veteran , encounters Helene, a school teacher. Paul has taken his father's business and owns a butchery in the village. As the ceremony progressed, both seemed to enjoy each other's company while they ate and chatted merrily. That was a happy beginning. Afterwards, the general atmosphere of the film changed. We could feel an eeriness, a sort of awkward silence and emptiness as they walked out of the celebrations. Paul accompanied Helene home and they got separated with a sense of sadness, as if they wanted to stay together. The next day, Paul visited Helene in her classroom and brought a piece of meat, well wrapped, like a flower bouquet. He promised to bring more. Helene enjoyed Popaul's company and could do anything for him. Their relationship deepened, until some unexplained murders started to occur in the village...
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