Prior to this, Chabrol was best known for co-authoring a book on
Hitchcock with Eric Rohmer. Yet his debut film is not the thriller one
has come to expect from the most commercially successful of the new
wavers. The American neatness of its plotting belies a De Sica-ish
naturalism in location and dialogue. The psychological themes are
Hitchcockian, but unlike Hitch, Chabrol was interested in social
problems: Le Beau Serge is a tough-minded look at rural deprivation.
While it is often tagged the 'first of the nouvelle vague', its
stylistic restraint and moral seriousness set it apart.
