In the fifth and sixth grades, in Esmeraldas, I used to join my Room B classmates in the daily battle against the goons of Room A (and, occasionally, those of Room C, although those boys usually took our side). By “battle,” I mean we’d play soccer, fiercely, in the dirt – school uniforms be damned. I knew some of the boys were getting into trouble at home for this.
A rather rougher feud is the subject of
War of the Buttons. The boys of Ballydowse and Carrickdowse, in County Cork, attend different schools; they can’t battle during recess, so they conduct after-hours warfare.
A Carrick boy calls a Bally boy a toss-pot. How bad is that word? To find out, the Bally boys bribe a younger child to say “toss-pot” to the priest. The priest chases the child out of the church.
The Bally boys sneak over to Carrickdowse at night and vandalize a billboard. The Carrick boys retaliate. Soon the two sides are taking prisoners and cutting off each other’s buttons, shoelaces, and neckties. This is hard on the Bally boys, who are poorer; the poorest among them are sure to get thrashed at home.
This only strengthens the resolve of one urchin: Fergus, the Bally boys’ brave leader. He instructs his troops to fight naked to avoid losing buttons; when they object, he imposes a fundraising scheme so they can buy more buttons. This tests their loyalty. Some grumble. Some commit treason. The feud, once two-sided, becomes more complex.
The movie begins with children aping grownups. Eventually, the grownups themselves, with their own resentments, which may have initially inspired the children’s conflict, get dragged into the war. Cutesy entertainment becomes dire parable.
The screenwriter, Colin Welland, won an Oscar for writing the great
Chariots of Fire. He also won a BAFTA for acting in Ken Loach’s great
Kes, playing a teacher who is kind to an oppressed but spirited little boy. There is a kind schoolmaster in
Buttons, too, who looks after the downtrodden Fergus.
Welland himself was a teacher, as was
Louis Pergaud, the author of the 1912 novel. A pacifist, Pergaud was conscripted in WW1, wounded, captured, and killed when his own side attacked the field hospital where he was convalescing. His novel was hugely popular in his native France. The French filmed it in 1962 and twice in 2011 – once setting it during WW2, with villagers, Jews, and Nazis.
I don’t know if any Irish strove to adapt the parable to their own society. This seems to have been an English endeavor. I don’t think it matters where it’s set. Like Truffaut’s
Small Change, this is a tale of Urchins Everywhere, beginning, predictably, with their gusto and pluck and then slyly turning the spotlight upon their suffering – and on the differences between the boys.
