Rosetta (1999)

Belgium, 1999
Directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Rosetta premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999. It was a small Belgian film set in the nondescript industrial town of Seraing, directed by sibling brothers who few had heard of yet, and not starring any big name actors. The story it tells is an intimate, grim one. Rosetta lives in a trailer park with her alcoholic mother. She is fiercely desperate for a job, any job, for a sense of normalcy, purpose, and escape from her dead-end existence. She will do anything to get work, making questionable decisions in the process. Rosetta, in what was considered a surprise at the time, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for Best Film and Best Actress for its star, Emile Dequenne.

If you ever watched the show 30 Rock, reading the above synopsis you might have been reminded of Tracy Jordan's "Hard to Watch". Tracy Jordan the comedian, in an attempt to class up his public image, stars in a tragic Serious Film About Poverty, one that is actually shallow with nothing to say. Naturally, it wins a ton of awards. 30 Rock was on to something there. The world of independent and foreign films is rife with movies unfortunately similar to "Hard to Watch". The least obnoxious of these are probably sincere attempts at illuminating real social problems, but end up saying little more than "life can really suck, especially if you're poor". Gee, thanks movie! I didn't know that! Even worse are the films that have an exploitative or leering fascination with poverty and suffering, or use it as a pretentious feint towards being True Art yet are nothing but hollow, condescending vanity projects on the part of their creators. Rosetta, with the unrelenting misery of its titular character's life, seems at risk to become such a film. But there's something different about Rosetta, and all of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's films.

For starters, the Dardennes know the milieu of Rosetta personally. They live in Seraing, and spent their early filmmaking careers as documentarians, largely chronicling the lives of fellow Belgians. Authenticity is felt in every scene of Rosetta. In fact, the film was so provocative to the Belgian public that people successfully petitioned for a new law upping the minimum wage for minors in Belgium. It was nicknamed the Rosetta Law. This is the rare film about social issues that actually triggered helpful change in the world, which is incredible.

Perhaps why Rosetta stirred people to action was because it is not directly political in nature - there is no didacticism or overarching socio-economic theme here. Any political implications arise from an utterly personal story, which is more persuasive and powerful. Rosetta is an intimate film - claustrophobically so. I don't think there is a single shot without Rosetta in it, most often in close-up. The camera follows closely behind her as she walks and runs, locking the viewer into her headspace.

It is also an enormously physical movie, relying as much on movement to tell its story as any action film. Rosetta is always moving. When she is fired from her first job, she refuses to leave the building, even fighting off the security guards when they try to escort her out. She is always running, peering around corners, crawling through holes in fences. When her mother is in withdrawal, she tries to escape the trailer to meet a man who will exchange alcohol for sex. Rosetta chases her and furiously tackles her to the ground. Fired from a second job, she assaults her boss in desperate frustration and clings to a sack of flour, refusing to give up. Rosetta is a fighter. She feels that if she ever stops moving forward, she will only fall deeper into the black hole of poverty. In the process, she has become a hardened person, ferociously single-minded in pursuit of her goal. This is the only way she knows how to survive. It's Rosetta against the world. In one heartbreaking scene, we briefly see through her defensive shell. Rosetta has made an awkward friendship with a co-worker, and sleeps on a sofa in his apartment one night. She is clearly relieved not to be in her trailer, and probably feels more secure than she has in a long time. Before falling asleep she whispers to herself. "Your name is Rosetta. My name is Rosetta. You have a job. I have a job. You have a friend. I have a friend. You have a normal life. I have a normal life. You will not fall by the wayside. I will not fall by the wayside. Goodnight. Goodnight." She is reminding herself that she has an identity. Her fight for a job is a fight to be recognized, to matter. It is tragic that nobody else in Rosetta's life says these encouraging words to her - she must say them to herself.

Paradoxically for a film that is so physical, Rosetta is not ultimately about her material situation. Rosetta begins and ends the film in an equally dire material state. It's about the awakening of a conscience. Rosetta is so determined to hold down a job that she ends up betraying one of the only people who was kind to her. She has no sense of morality beyond survival, and treats other people as either obstacles to her goal, or a means to an end of getting there. But after this hurtful betrayal, we begin to sense stirrings of something behind Rosetta's stoic facade - remorse? Regret? And in the quietly remarkable final shot, we see in her face something else entirely, as she is the recipient of a tiny but hugely meaningful act of grace. Perhaps this is the ultimate reason why Rosetta functions on a much higher level than "Hard to Watch" and its ilk - it transcends being just a study of a life in poverty, becoming a glimpse of a soul in transition.

Though the Dardenne brothers are not religious as far as I'm aware, their works resonate with Christian themes. Many of their films unfold like biblical parables. In Rosetta, beneath the seemingly objective, tangible approach the Dardennes take to storytelling, you sense a spirit moving through the characters and their world. In several of their movies, their characters reach a point of utter despair. They are ready to give up - then something happens to stop them. It could be coincidental, but it changes them. In Rosetta, she seems to finally realize something beyond her own urgent, desperate needs - perhaps she is beginning to hear a still, small voice within her.

Rosetta is the furthest thing from a feel-good movie. But its rewards are great - this is a film of immense power. And I cannot believe I've written this whole review without even mentioning how great Emile Dequenne is as Rosetta - there is not a trace of actorly vanity or artifice in her performance. 

For those who have yet to see a Dardenne brothers film, this is likely not the best place to start - their recent Two Days, One Night and The Kid with a Bike are equally incredible and more accessible. Within their plain-looking movies is a wealth of wisdom and compassion - I highly recommend seeking them out.