Rosetta (1999)

Rosetta is a French film first released in 1999, directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne.  The film stars Émilie Dequenne, Fabrizio Rongione, Anne Yernaux, Olivier Gourmet and Bernard Marbaix.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


Rosetta is an adolescent girl for whom every day is a struggle against an unsympathetic world.  Living on a squalid campsite with her drunken mother, she has no friends and has to sell second hand clothes to make ends meet.   One day, her lot appears to improve when she meets a boy of her own age who runs a waffle stall.  He manages to get her a job and they start an uneasy friendship.  But how long will Rosetta’s new found happiness last?

Winner of the Palmes D’Or at Cannes in 1999, Rosetta is hard-hitting social drama from the celebrated Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.  Similar to their earlier film La Promesse, which tackled social exclusion and exploitation of racial minorities, Rosetta paints a dismal portrait of rejection and isolation, this time from the standpoint of a disturbed teenage girl.

This is not an easy film to watch.  The subject matter alone is enough to put you off watching it, and the uncompromising realism in the Dardennes’ cinematography merely emphasises an already intolerably depressing story.  The dizzying photography provides another obstacle for the viewer, making it physically difficult to even watch the film.

Despite this, Rosetta is an important work of cinema, and an impressive one – impressive in the sense that it leaves the audience with a definite impression.  The way in which the film is shot allows the audience to share Rosetta’s world and experience its unfairness and brutality.  Strangely, although virtually every film is shot within touching distance of Rosetta, it somehow manages to keep the audience away from the troubled girl, and we never really get to sympathise with her.  Rosetta seems to be cocooned in her own world, avoiding any form of physical or emotional contact with anyone.

Emilie Dequenne’s performance is also worth mentioning.  Her portrayal of Rosetta, which won her the Best Actress award at Cannes in 1999, is of a rare intensity.  The young girl appears more like the wild child in Truffaut’s L’Enfant sauvage than a conventional rebellious teenager. Although she shows great distress and suffering, Dequenne prevents us from ever liking her character, and she remains throughout a puzzling, solitary creature, fending for herself like a feral dog.

The film is most extraordinary for the impact of its very final shot, which somehow makes the ordeal of watching this film entirely worthwhile.

© James Travers 2001

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