 | Rosetta Starring: Emilie Dequenne, Fabrizio Rongione |
"Rosetta" (Belgium) won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year. Emilie Dequenne also won a well-deserved best actress award. In spite of the high praise, "Rosetta" has been seen by all too few. In most major cities it ran for one or two weeks, usually in one theatre only, with little press and then disappeared. It has just been released on video in America and worldwide release should follow. I urge you to keep an eye out for this exceptional film. The film begins in a documentary style, with a shoulder held camera in the face of a ferocious young woman kicking, screaming, and yelling at the loss of her job. Finally she is carried out by security guards. The "camera in the face" style continues as the story unfolds of a young girl (Emilie Dequenne) desperately looking for a job, obsessed with a desire to live a normal life. Unfortunately, life has not been kind to Rosetta. She lives in a run down trailer park with a hopeless alcoholic mother. Only her rage keeps her going. In her desperation to find work she considers murder yet settles for betrayal by informing on a friend who works at a waffle stand. ("Poffertjes", or small, sugared waffles, are very popular in Belgium and Holland.) The friend is fired for "skimming" and Rosetta is rewarded with a job. This is a bitter victory. At this point, the film becomes more intense and dark until the final unforgettable frame. The directors have called this a war film. This is an accurate description for Rosetta has declared war on life. The film's impact comes from the form. The brothers Dardenne and their talented cameraman keep the camera glued, in close up, to Rosetta. In the beginning one gets somewhat seasick from the jolting camera. We are unable to escape the main character. There are few long shots and even those are repetitive. I asked myself, surely they won't keep this "close-up style" throughout the film? They do and the effect is amazing; the audience becomes one with Rosetta. We see what she sees, feels what she feels and the claustrophobic effect becomes disturbing. We become too involved with her depressing life and yet, like an auto accident, we can't take our eyes off it. Our curiosity and empathy will lead us to the last inevitable scene. For this style to work, Emilie Dequenne had to give a perfect performance and retain the tense ferocity of her character. One wrong facial move, one incorrect blink and all would be lost. This was not to happen. Dequenne did not fail with this terribly demanding performance. Nor did directors Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. This could have been little more than an interesting experiment, but they never lost focus on this character driven film. The audience's complete and undivided involvement with Rosetta never falters. 1999 was a year of impressive films. Rosetta can hold it's own with the best of the lot. |