Rosetta

معرفی فیلم Rosetta

Rosetta, a teenager living in trailer park with her hedonist mother, is put in front of Dardennes’ handheld and tight-focused camera this time. Released in 1999, Rosetta is another success for the Belgian writer-directors, Luc and Jean-Pierrre Dardenne. The film won the top prize at Cannes together with the Best Actress award for the promising actress Emilie Dequenne as Rosetta. After making a splash with La Promesse their previous film at festival circuits, the socially aware and leftist writer-directors this time focus their handheld camera on another fumbling and faulty human being who is trying to survive as best as she can, therefore they compose “music of the street” as they call their characteristic storytelling formula

All Rosetta craves is a job and a normal life it ensures, this is why she is fighting tooth and nails in the opening sequence not to lose her job. Her encounter with Rique, a teenage boy who operates a waffle stand, and their following drama reveals the depth of her need for a job. In one of the most breathtaking sequences of the film she almost lets him drown as he accidentally falls into the muddy creek trying to help her since she regards him more a competitor than a friend

Rosetta’s problem and the way it is revealed through the distinctive filmmaking techniques of the Dardennes – handheld camera, documentary-like narration, lack of didacticism about their characters among many others- is worth watching meticulously. In the view of some credits the film echoes Mouchette by French master Robert Bresson in terms of both plot and character and Rosetta’s rationales for her behavior evoke the veritable theme song of Brecht’s Threepenny Opera – “First comes the bread, then comes morals”. It is remarkable to mention that Rosetta has inspired a new Belgian law known as “Plan Rosetta”, which prohibits employers from paying teenaged workers less than the minimum wage

Source: Jonathan Rosenbaum: Buried Clues, True Grit: On La Promesse And Rosetta Chicago Reader, 22 August 1997 & 14 january 2000

Written by Pouya Alipour