War of the Buttons is a 1994 Irish film directed by John Roberts, about two rival kid gangs in Ireland, the Ballys (poor), and the Carricks (rich). The setting is County Cork

County Cork

County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...

, where it was filmed on location.

Although the film is usually classed as a drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

, the tone that it chooses is frequently light and comedic, and it examines issues of war, the actions and consequences that it always carries, and how it can divide and oppose people that can be friends as easily as they can be enemies.

Background

The film is based on a 1912 French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 novel by Louis Pergaud

Louis Pergaud

Louis Pergaud was a French writer and soldier, whose principal works were known as "Animal Stories" due to their rooting in the flora and fauna of the Franche-Comté. His most famous work was the novel La Guerre des boutons , written in 1912...

, that was filmed in 1961 and originally brought to the screen in 1962, in the French film

Cinema of France

The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...

 directed by Yves Robert

Yves Robert

Yves Robert was a French actor, screenwriter, director, and producer.Born in Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, in his teens Robert went to Paris to pursue a career in acting, starting with unpaid parts on stage in the city's various theatre workshops. To support himself, he worked at a variety of jobs...

 La Guerre des boutons

War of the Buttons (1962 film)

La Guerre des boutons or War of the Buttons is a 1962 French film directed by Yves Robert, 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...

.

Plot summary

In the centre of the bridge over the river which separates the Irish villages of Carrickdowse and Ballydowse is a white line that few young people dare cross. That's because the youths of the two towns spend most of their time trying to one-up the other, whether it's over the sale of hospital raffle tickets or something more important, such as deciding who's a "tosspot" and who isn't, or, for that matter, defining what a tosspot is. This War of the Buttons has been going on as long as any of the youths can remember, and as far as they're concerned, it's "to the death", though rarely does either group hurt more than its pride.

The leader of the Ballys is a not-too-promising student named Fergus (Gregg Fitzgerald

Gregg Fitzgerald

Gregg Fitzgerald is an Irish actor, who appeared in a number of films in the 1990s including War of the Buttons , The Butcher Boy , and One Man's Hero,...

), son of a pauper family, who lives with his mother and an abusive man

Child abuse

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...

, who is apparently not his father (as he believes that somebody else had fathered Fergus), in a trailer on the edge of Ballydowd. What Fergus lacks in education he makes up for in leadership, and the youth of Ballydowd will follow him anywhere, especially a girl named Marie (Eveanna Ryan), who acts as the story's narrator, reviving her memories of what happened from her adulthood point of view. The Carricks have a leader too: Jerome, a.k.a. Geronimo

Geronimo

Geronimo was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. Allegedly, "Geronimo" was the name given to him during a Mexican incident...

 (John Coffey), son of a wealthy family.

The story tracks the escalating events of the gangs' feud

Feud

A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...

, their class differences (the original and main incentive for their fights), Fergus's troubles with his oppressive environment and the conflicts brought upon when the adults of the villages find out about it, as well as the conflicts within the members of the Ballys. The strategic operations of the latter ones to win the war, including a nude ambush

Ambush

An ambush is a long-established military tactic, in which the aggressors take advantage of concealment and the element of surprise to attack an unsuspecting enemy from concealed positions, such as among dense underbrush or behind hilltops...

mounted on their enemies, are shown in great detail. The groups clash in several battles, with the final one aiming to conquer the Carrickss "castle".