War of the Buttons (1962)

Original title

La Guerre des boutons

Directed by

Yves Robert

Genre

comedy film

Country

France

Runtime

1h 31m

Rated

6

Rating

7.2 of 10 from 294 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Two gangs of French village kids fight each other over territory and pride. They cut buttons off the losers' clothes as trophies. The battles start as fun but become more intense.

playfulchildlikenostalgiclightheartedrowdyearthyanti-authoritarianperiod

What happens

La Guerre des boutons or War of the Buttons is a 1962 French film directed by Yves Robert. War of the Buttons is about two rival kid gangs whose playful combats escalate into violence. The title derives from the buttons that are cut off from the rival team's clothes as combat trophies. The film is based on La Guerre des boutons, a novel by Louis Pergaud (1882–1915), who was killed in action in World War I and whose works portray a fervent anti-militarism. The young and largely untrained actors included André Treton ("Lebrac"), Michel Isella ("l'Aztec") and Martin Lartigue ("Petit Gibus"). The character Petit Gibus's line of dialogue - uttered in frustration - "si j'aurais su, j'aurais pas v'nu" ("if I woulda known, I wouldn'ta come"), with its incorrect grammar (the correct form should be: "si j'avais su, je ne serais pas venu") has become a familiar tagline in France (the line was not in the original novel). The film won France's Prix Jean Vigo. The film was remade in Ireland in 1994 as War of the Buttons, in an Irish setting, and again in France in 2011, with the original title. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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