The turmoil and tenacity of a seventeen-year-old girl, desperately seeking employment in the slums of Belgium is documented in 'Rosetta', the new film from those happy go lucky scamps Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne -- directors of the 1996 laugh riot 'La Promesse'...
Well, to call their work humorous would be an overstatement, and to call it original or even high quality would be an even bigger exaggeration. For ninety-minutes we follow Rosetta (Émilie Dequenne) around the Belgium ghettos with a cinematic intimacy that boarders on pornographic -- with handheld cameras pressed so close to her face that her breath fogs the lens, and one wrong step off the mark means the actors run the risk of physical penetration -- the film looks like the work of a demented Lars von Trier fan, only with the lack of subtlety and restraint usually reserved for Joel Schumacher productions.
Acting however is first class, with Dequenne finding the humanity within the character, taking it far above the level of quality this picture deserves. It's a sad fact though, that for all her efforts, her work is coupled with a story that never builds any real level of interest or imagination and a script that just refuses to make us care. It's also comically reminiscent of the old hackneyed 'kitchen-sink' dramas of the British new wave. Just switch Belgium for Manchester and throw in a pregnancy sub plot and you wouldn't be at odds to find Alan Bates standing in the corner crying: "By eck, it's grim up north"...
My overall problem with the film is basically this: I don't see the point in it. It doesn't entertain, it doesn't give anything back to the audience and it certainly has no educational relevance. An hour and a half of physical and emotional degradation, followed by a dénouement that made me think I'd accidentally pressed stop on the video remote -- until the end credits began to roll and I saw that THIS was the end -- and what was it all for? The look and style of the film is traditional Euro/Indy film cliché, all handheld camera and rough jump cuts, treated here as if they were cutting edge, but in reality have been used and abused by everyone from Godard to Spielberg and even MTV. This is a film-designed solely to ring a response from the viewer, which, if successful, isn't a bad thing. Having recently watched Bruno Dumont's excellent 'L'Humanité', a film that mixed shocking sexual imagery and updated neo-realist technique to deliver a story and a character that gripped rather than griped, it worked in shocking contrast to 'Rosetta', which was an hour shorter than 'L'Humanité' but felt much, much longer.
With an interesting story and a character that works well to not only enrich, but also guide the audience through the film, 'Rosetta' might have worked. But there is no guide here, simply because there is nothing to guide us through -- the filmmakers show us the ramshackle collection of bleeding-heart images, but instead of taking us deeper, simply sit back and gloat, as if they have created something truly unique. Fraught with contradictions and a plot that goes nowhere -- delivering the same repetitious scenes over and over and over again -- make Rosetta' ultimately, a very unsuccessful film.
Well, to call their work humorous would be an overstatement, and to call it original or even high quality would be an even bigger exaggeration. For ninety-minutes we follow Rosetta (Émilie Dequenne) around the Belgium ghettos with a cinematic intimacy that boarders on pornographic -- with handheld cameras pressed so close to her face that her breath fogs the lens, and one wrong step off the mark means the actors run the risk of physical penetration -- the film looks like the work of a demented Lars von Trier fan, only with the lack of subtlety and restraint usually reserved for Joel Schumacher productions.
Acting however is first class, with Dequenne finding the humanity within the character, taking it far above the level of quality this picture deserves. It's a sad fact though, that for all her efforts, her work is coupled with a story that never builds any real level of interest or imagination and a script that just refuses to make us care. It's also comically reminiscent of the old hackneyed 'kitchen-sink' dramas of the British new wave. Just switch Belgium for Manchester and throw in a pregnancy sub plot and you wouldn't be at odds to find Alan Bates standing in the corner crying: "By eck, it's grim up north"...
My overall problem with the film is basically this: I don't see the point in it. It doesn't entertain, it doesn't give anything back to the audience and it certainly has no educational relevance. An hour and a half of physical and emotional degradation, followed by a dénouement that made me think I'd accidentally pressed stop on the video remote -- until the end credits began to roll and I saw that THIS was the end -- and what was it all for? The look and style of the film is traditional Euro/Indy film cliché, all handheld camera and rough jump cuts, treated here as if they were cutting edge, but in reality have been used and abused by everyone from Godard to Spielberg and even MTV. This is a film-designed solely to ring a response from the viewer, which, if successful, isn't a bad thing. Having recently watched Bruno Dumont's excellent 'L'Humanité', a film that mixed shocking sexual imagery and updated neo-realist technique to deliver a story and a character that gripped rather than griped, it worked in shocking contrast to 'Rosetta', which was an hour shorter than 'L'Humanité' but felt much, much longer.
With an interesting story and a character that works well to not only enrich, but also guide the audience through the film, 'Rosetta' might have worked. But there is no guide here, simply because there is nothing to guide us through -- the filmmakers show us the ramshackle collection of bleeding-heart images, but instead of taking us deeper, simply sit back and gloat, as if they have created something truly unique. Fraught with contradictions and a plot that goes nowhere -- delivering the same repetitious scenes over and over and over again -- make Rosetta' ultimately, a very unsuccessful film.