Le Beau Serge (1958)

A sophisticated man (Jean Claude Brialy) from Paris returns to the country village of his youth to recuperate from a debilitating illness. He reconnects with his childhood friend (Gerard Blain), who has turned into a bitter and brutal alcoholic. Directed by Claude Chabrol, this was his first film and often cited as (one of) the first film of the French New Wave which would soon be followed by the likes of Francois Truffaut, Jean Luc Godard and Alain Resnais among others. This is a bleak film with only a glimmer of hope at the very end. The lives of these village people are wretched and has turned them into uncaring and unfeeling brutes whose only outlets seem to be sex and alcohol. Even the town's doctor and priest are ineffectual. Chabrol's view of country life seems authentic (he grew up in the village where it was filmed) and there's an almost documentary like texture to the movie. A very impressive directorial film debut though I don't know that I'd rank it among my favorite Chabrol films. With Bernadette Lafont, Michele Meritz (as Blain's wife, the only really sympathetic character in the film), Claude Cerval, Jeanne Perez and Edmond Beauchamp.