La Nouvelle guerre des boutons (2011) - film review

March, 1944.  At the height of the Second World War, the peace of a small region of rural France is disturbed by an altogether different kind of conflict, one involving the children of two rival villages.  For longer than anyone can remember, the boys of Longeverne and Velran have been at war, but recently their hostilities have taken a more serious turn.  Whenever one of the combatants is taken prisoner by the other gang, the buttons are torn from his clothes and he is sent back denuded and humiliated.  In the midst of this relentless onslaught, the leader of the Longeverne gang loses his heart to a young girl named Violette, not knowing that she is of Jewish origin...

In September 2011, French cinema audiences experienced what must have felt like a mass attack of déjà vu when two remakes of the Yves Robert classic La Guerre des boutons (1962) hit the big screen within a week of each other.  The second film, conveniently titled La Nouvelle guerre des boutons to avoid confusion at the box office, is ostensibly the grander of the two films, and it was certainly better publicised.  Set in Nazi occupied France during the early 1940s, it makes a laudable attempt to place the familiar story of childhood rebellion within the context of a world at war and a country divided geographically and morally by the Occupation.  What made this second film an easier sell was that it was directed by Christophe Barratier, who had previously garnered international acclaim with his 2004 hit Les Choristes.  If you had to choose between the two films, on paper Barratier’s is probably the one you would go for.  If you have the stamina and the financial wherewithal to watch both films, you are likely to conclude that the first film, Yann Samuell’s La Guerre des boutons, is better value for money.

It is worth saying that neither of the two films is strictly a remake of Yves Robert’s film.  Unable to obtain the rights to Robert’s screenplay, both Samuell and Barratier had to develop their own conception of Louis Pergaud’s well-known 1912 novel (and they did so completely unaware that  another Guerre des boutons was in production).   Samuell opted for a film that is closer in spirit to Robert’s, using it partly as an autobiography, and partly as a commentary on changing moral attitudes in the early 1960s.  Barratier, by contrast, went back to the 1940s and opened up the scope of Pergaud’s story to explore more adult themes, in particular the corrosive nature of racism.  Both films are compromised by their naivety, but whereas Samuell’s version is charming in its simplicity, Barratier’s is laboured and creaks under the strain of its heavy burden of forced allegory and unsubtle moralising. 

It is a shame that Barratier’s film had to come out so soon after Samuell’s, as comparisons between the two films are inevitably going to be drawn, with the second film to make it onto the screen coming off worse.  Samuell’s film definitely wins out on the character front - the protagonists are more convincing and better developed, the child actors who portray them more charismatic and likable.  Barratier’s film partly makes up for this deficit with its more spectacular visuals.  Both films are probably far better suited for children than adults and neither comes remotely close to matching the exquisite charm of Yves Robert’s film.  You pays your money and you takes your choice.  If it’s an engaging, character-centric drama you are after, go for Yves Samuell’s film.   If, on the other hand, you’d rather have blockbuster cinematic spectacle liberally doused in bogus sentimentality, Christophe Barratier’s La Nouvelle guerre des boutons is just the ticket.  Personally, I’d rather stick with the 1962 classic, the only adaptation of Pergaud’s novel that has any chance of standing the test of time.

© James Travers 2011

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