Chabrol's Le Boucher

[poliphilo]

Note the war memorial. The camera never dwells on it but keeps panning past. There it sits, unmissable, in the middle of the town square, right under Helene's windows, reminding us that this charming, sleepy, Perigord village is actually no stranger to violence. The townspeople may treat the appearance of a serial killer in their midst as a terrible aberration but it's not

Le Boucher came out in 1970 and the killer (there's never any real mystery as to his identity) is a former soldier who served in Indochina. The point isn't laboured but this is a Vietnam movie.