WAR OF THE BUTTONS (La nouvelle guerre des boutons) DVD (2011)

SYNOPSIS: Set in occupied WWII France, War of the Buttons tells the tale of pre-teen rebel Lebrac (newcomer Jean Texier) and the “war” he leads between two rival kid gangs from neighboring villages. Once Lebrac falls for Violette (Ilona Bachelier), a young Jewish girl who is new in town and in danger of being exposed by the Nazis, the children are faced with putting their own conflicts aside to protect her and confront the very real war happening around them. Directed by Academy Award® nominee Christophe Barratier (Les Chorus) War of the Buttons features model/actress Laetitia Casta (Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, Arbitrage), actor/filmmaker Guillaume Canet (Farewell, Tell No One) and Welcome to the Sticks star Kad Merad. The film is produced and co-written by Thomas Langmann (Academy Award® winner for The Artist).

MOVIE REVIEW:

I’m a Christophe Barratier fan. Director of the endearing Les Choristes (2004) and Paris 36 (2008), Barratier is great at crafting stories of mass appeal. His works tend to emphasise an idyllic, rustic and quaint Parisian sensibility that is found only in the minds of tourists or fancy picture books. To achieve such an effect, it comes without saying that he often uses wonderful actors and lush mise-en-scène.With all these in mind, it pains me to say that his latest outing is a flop, destined for a straight-to-DVD whimper of a finish.

War of the Buttons(2004), in short, is about the petty tussles between French schoolboys that grow into a gang war (as kids often inflate the circumstances surrounding them). Buttons come into the picture when the boys discover that they could humiliate the opposition by removing all their buttons so that the losers would have to hold up their trousers and walk home in shame. The story is based on a 1912 novel, La Guerre des boutonsby Louis Pergaud, and there is a French adaptation of the novel in 1962 as well as an Irish adaptation in 1994. With all these re-makes, it would seem then, that Barratier had solid reason for coming up with another.

However, War of the Buttons doesn’t quite have that magic that all other Barratier films have. It is apparent that the director has come to bet on certain signature “moves”, and tries, almost desperately, to replicate them in this film that proves too different a mould. He knows how the classic charismatic cast worked so well for him in Les Choristes, and it is almost uncanny how the casting and crafting of the character Lebrac (Jean Texier) in War of the Buttons seems to be but a shadow of thesuave protagonist Pierre Morhange Jean-Baptiste Maunier in Les Choristes.

Similarly, Clément Godefroy’s role as the adorable and petite Maxence Perrin who everyone adores and protects, recalls Pépinot in Les Choristes. Unlike Pépinot however, Perrin’s screams are more grating than cute, and is perhaps a bit too self-conscious than his predecessor. To add to the disappointment, star-studded additions like Guillaume Canet and Laetitia Casta birth an awkward, boring chemistry and a very insipid, unconvincing romance.

I’m also undecided about how the trivial gang war between the schoolboys is stretched to gesture at more depth, such as the parallels that the boys draw between their fights and the persecution of the Jews or notions of resistance. This thread, which has the potential to be thoroughly moving and meaningful, comes across as cheap and tacky in Barratier’s adaptation. Despite all these, it was a couple of nasty close-up camera shots during the first gang tussle at the beginning of the film that truly astounded. Lumbering in its own uncertainty, and building such an unrefined scene, those few shots sealed this film’s fate, for me.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

NIL

MOVIE RATING:

(War of the Buttons is a boring and pathetic adaptation; only passable, even as a kid’s film)

DVD RATING :

Review by Tay Huizhen