Buttoners

Running time: N/A

August 6, 1945, Kokura, Japan. Four men drink tea while discussing the therapeutic benefits of swearing. As they scoff at the desolate weather using a variety of expletives, they are unaware of the approaching Enola Gay and its hidden atomic bomb. Due to chance and poor visibility, however, the pilot changes the target to Hiroshima. This is the first of six interweaving tales. The other five anecdotes are played out in Prague, exactly fifty years later. Each charts its own ironies, wrought with bizarre and playful musings-from a television report about frozen sperm rocketed into space to an education in the erotic use of dentures to remove upholstery buttons. Director Petr Zelenka's colorful and often hilarious world of eccentric characters makes up a cruel space where everything is somehow connected and chance has sinister effects. Here, time is replayed and twisted darkness lurks everywhere. Through an uncanny understanding of structure and a unique offbeat style, Zelenka gives new meaning to the term "degrees of separation." Having racked up a string of international prizes and having achieved cult status in the Czech Republic, Buttoners certainly qualifies as one of the most off-the-wall films of the year. --Mike Rabehl