The Butcher

Alina runs a successful art gallery in Palermo, a city where beauty still glints behind everyday tension. Her husband Daniele, a renowned orchestra conductor, is rarely home, leaving room for her to shape her own world. During a routine drive to the airport, a sense of emptiness she hadn't acknowledged pushes to the surface. What begins as curiosity soon evolves into a risky fascination with a playful butcher whose crude humor, sharp jokes, and electric edges awaken desires Alina has kept in check. The tension between art, appetite, and propriety pulls her toward a choice she cannot unmake.

Directed by Aurelio Grimaldi, the film is adapted from a work by Alina Reyes. It released in 1998 as an Italian drama featuring Alba Parietti and Predrag Manojlović in the leading roles.

Reception aside, the movie leans into themes of alienation and the lure of danger within a bourgeois frame. It portrays a successful woman negotiating power, affection, and risk as she questions what she wants from life and from her marriage.

Box office data for The Butcher is not provided in the available materials. Thus its commercial footprint remains unclear in this context.

Cultural impact note: The film adds to late 90s Italian cinema by foregrounding female sexuality and autonomy in a tight moral landscape. Its stark mood and restrained performances echo the era's interest in interior dramas.