In Périgord, in the Dordogne, two misfits-Hélène (Stéphane Audran), a Parisian schoolteacher, and Popaul (Jean Yanne), a shy butcher recently returned from the Indochina war-find each other by stages. The slow pace of provincial life (inherently suspenseful in Chabrol's lens) suits Mademoiselle Hélène, or suits her repression, just fine. But this town located above the area's famous cave paintings is also sitting on a well of stifled primordial hunter-gatherer instincts. “Is being a butcher something you learn?” the teacher asks her new friend, before the first corpse turns up. With rare compassion for his two leads, Chabrol elegantly dissects provincial life, using local inhabitants as incidental characters-in the busy butcher shop, and, of course, at funerals. He creates the picture of a village stripped of the small kindnesses and jostling humor of Pagnol's Provence, where everyone knows everyone. Here, everyone only knows about everyone.