Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

Buttoners (1997)

Director: Petr Zelenka

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Popular winner of a Rotterdam 1998 Tiger Award, this delightfully droll feature consists of six stories: the first, set in Japan, take place just before the bomb drops on Hiroshima, and the rest, set in the Czech Republic, take place 50 years later to the day. Initially, it's hard to discern a linking theme between Japanese mystified by American swearing, lovers indulging their passion in the back of a taxi, a man with a very bizarre perversion, and another whose expertise lies in spitting at trains, but gradually, as the film becomes increasingly offbeat and hilarious, Zelenka's concern with cause and effect, chance and destiny, responsibility and forgiveness emerges with intriguing, consistently surprising results. The imaginative blend of social satire, historical speculation, sci-fi and downright surrealism is sometimes reminiscent of late Buñuel, though the lasting impression is of a highly original black comedy not quite like anything else.

Author: GA 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.