La Guerre des boutons (1962)

La Guerre des boutons is one of the most important films about childhood in French cinema, certainly one of the most memorable.  It was made at the height of France’s protracted and costly war with Algeria, something which may have contributed to director Yves Robert’s problems in finding a financial backer for the film.  In the end, he had to set up his own production company with his wife, Danièle Delorme.  No French distribution company would touch the film, so Robert was forced to turn to the Americans - Warner Brothers took up the challenge, but without any great enthusiasm.  No one, least of all its director, could have anticipated the film’s phenomenal success.  It attracted just under 10 million spectators in France and was also an international hit.  The film was well-received by the critics, and won the prestigious Prix Jean Vigo in 1962.  Already an established actor, Yves Robert had his first major success as a director with this film and would go on to make many more notable films.  His subsequent successes include the classic comedy Le Grand blond avec une chaussure noire (1972) and the internationally acclaimed diptych La Gloire de mon père / Le Château de ma mère (1990).  Thirty years on, John Roberts directed a respectable British remake of the film, War of the Buttons (1994), and another French language remake is scheduled for release in 2012, directed by Christophe Barratier, of Les Choristes (2004) fame.

La Guerre des boutons is based on a classic French novel of the same title by Louis Pergaud, which was first published in 1912, three years before its author (a committed pacifist) was killed in action during the First World War.  Its anti-war message is easily discernible, the extreme folly of war rendered painfully acute when seen through the prism of childhood innocence, much as in René Clément’s earlier film Jeux interdits (1952).  Yet the film is far more than an attack on man’s inhumanity to man.  It encompasses other important themes - the class war, the gulf between the generations, the traumas of childhood and the quest for identity.  Whilst the tone of the film is for the most part light-hearted, there are some darker moments that invite sombre reflection on some serious adult issues, many of which still have a profound resonance.

The film’s charm stems from the fact that most of what it shows us comes from the perspective of its child protagonists.  When the adults enter the frame, they are almost invariably caricatures of grown-ups - insensitive, drunken brutes who appear more infantile than their rebellious offspring (note the idiotic grenade throwing sequence).  By contrast, the children are astonishingly believable and far better delineated than the adult characters.  There are echoes of Jean Vigo’s Zéro de conduite and Truffaut’s Les 400 coups in the way the film captures the innate need that all children have to rebel against adult authority and to grasp something of the freedom that wild animals enjoy in their natural environment.  The irony, of course, is that in pursuing their notion of liberté the youngsters end up forming a little society that is a grotesque parody of the adult world they seek to escape from.  It isn’t long before their innocent little Utopia is tainted by materialistic concerns, boorish debauchery and murderous loathing for the Other (the children from a neighbouring village).   Is this because the children are subsconsciously emulating their elders, or is it because all human beings are inherently fated to make the same mistakes, to create the same flawed inward-looking societies?

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the film is the ease with which the two rival gangs of children learn to hate one another.  What begins as a fairly harmless tussle rapidly escalates into something much nastier, and who can fail to be shocked by the sequence in which one of the boy warriors is caught and cowers in terror whilst his enemies threaten to chop off parts of his anatomy (including his zizzi)?  Whilst the film doesn’t quite plumb the depths of human savagery that Peter Brook’s Lord of the Flies would do a year later, La Guerre des boutons has a few darker moments that make you sit up and take notice.  Equally, there are also some heart-warming excursions that momentarily restore the spectator’s faith in humanity (notably the scene where the boys declare a truce so that they can tend to an injured rabbit).

None of the child actors in the film had any prior acting experience, and it is a testament to Yves Robert’s skill as a director that he manages to get such convincing performances from his young cast.   The film’s most memorable character is the adorable Petit Gibus, who steals just about every scene he appears in (especially the one where he is plied with calvados).  He was played by Martin Lartigue, who would reprise the role a year later in Yves Robert’s Bébert et l’omnibus (1963) and not long after play the lead in a French TV film adaptation of Huckleberry Finn, broadcast in 1967 (after which his acting career fizzled out).  Cast in the role of Gibus’s elder brother is the equally photogenic François Lartigue, who would later pursue a successful career as a cinematographer.  André Treton also deserves recognition for his rounded portrayal of Lebrac, the rabbit-loving leader of the Longueverne boys, who looks like a hybrid of Antoine Doinel from Truffaut’s Les 400 coups and a younger version of the James Dean character from Rebel Without a Cause (1955).

La Guerre des boutons deserves its standing as one of the great classics of French cinema.  An insightful and humorous depiction of childhood in its various manifestations, it also serves as a modern parable whose message, an appeal for mutual tolerance and understanding, is as cogent and relevant as it was when the film was first seen.  More importantly, it reminds us how we once saw the world as a child.   To quote its director, "La Guerre des boutons c’est la République des enfants.  Et Dieu sait si la République m’est chère..."

© James Travers 2003-2011

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