Customer Reviews

Rosetta (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I remember, at least half a dozen times, passing this movie by in the video store, gravitating towards it due to the legend "Winner Palm D'Or Best Actress/Best Picture" and the lovely face of Emilie Dequenne, then passing it by after reading the back. The summary of the plot bored me so immediately and intensely that I could not imagine actually sitting and watching the film. I eventually changed my mind, and thankfully so.

Rosetta is an absolutely driven character, almost an animal, single-minded in her goals. Those goals are mundane: find a job, lead a normal life. Her obstacles are mundane: rent, alcoholic mother, cramps. She asks questions, gets her answers, and walks away with no pretense of social grace. For most scenes the camera either points in the direction of Rosetta's POV, over her shoulder, or aims directly into her face. The shot rarely sits still: action and object are the same here. We see what she sees as she sees it and make judgments about people and situations alongside her, a process that usually reveals how silly normal people seem when viewed by someone with no tolerance for nonsense. She does not understand dancing - leisure, or why people would indulge in it when other things need doing, is foreign to her.

Routine fills her existence, and when the routines of friendship and work cannot be found, she constructs new and even unnecessarily complicated routines: cross the road to find the sewer where she hid her boots, change out of shoes into boots to cross the mud to reach the lake where she's set up fish traps with bobbypins and broken bottles, every day. She doesn't even keep the fish. In that way she, like most of us, is completely neurotic - but who has the motivation to carry out their designs with so much determination, in ignorance of those neuroses? Who completely ignores defeat?

I would recommend other Dequenne pictures, but apparently her only other role is alongside Mark Dacascos in the inscrutible Brotherhood of the Wolf. Stick with Rosetta and enjoy.

Kazimir Malevich once said "Viewers always demand that art be comprehensive, but they never demand of themselves to be comprehensible," or something like that. This low-budget, avant-garde film uses only the bare minimum of means with all extraneous elements eliminated. It's an honest, real portrait of a struggling Belgian teenager as she is determined to live a normal life. The film is shot almost entirely with hand-held cameras, many scenes close-up, and like most films of this genre, it is slow to start and some viewers may find this disconcerting. In the end they maybe left asking questions, but isn't that what it's all about? Despite it's unconventional style and anti-Hollywood approach, one is sure to be moved.

It's the story of a young girl who have a alcoholic mother. The atmosphere of the movie is good, the actors are okay, it could had been a good movie but they focus too much on the little simple things of life, way too much, Okay we saw her Open the door, lock the door, open the door, do we have to see it all the time?! The principal character, Rosetta, don't show much her emotion, except when she go into tantrum, she gets very angry. We saw her a couple of time go get her boots that she had hide in the woods, why seeing her do that all the time?? She wants a Real Job! Yeah we sure saw her want one! A guy who was helping her and try to be her friend almost drown in the water and she almost let him drown because she wants his job, a Real Job! She made him loose his job to get it, wow what a friend she is, he had help her and that the way she treat him? But hey she Wants a Real Job so bad. The camera move too much. I don't like cliché movie, I like simple real people on movie but with a story but this one don't have a story! It could had been a good movie if they would have a story with it more interesting and if the girl will be less cold. The ending is very weird, we saw her crying (now she show some emotion!) and that's the end! What IS the meaning of this movie?!

I beg to disagree with the reviewer who wrote that ROSETTA deserved the Palme D'Or, instead of ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER. All About My Mother--thin? Rather, I would call this film "thin."
All About My Mother is an excellent film. Maybe the fact that it is Spanish had something to do with its not receiving the Palme, it's Cannes. You know?

If most people agree that this shouldn't have been awarded the Palme, let me add another person to that group. Not even Dogma 95 movies will make you this dizzy.

Yes, it was interesting that the character is one with whom you will not sympathize. And the acting was very good, although the script and plot are so naturalistic that they seem pathetic at times, and if its theme was to show what a young person might descend to when faced with such troubles that she views herself as losing dignity, it is arguable that it failed. I had to force myself to finish it all. How many times do we watch Rosetta come through the traffic, go down the forest, and put on her boots? 19 times? A Thomas Hardy novel is optimistic and light next to this film.

I found myself not caring at all for her fate after her Judas move, though I initially felt sorry for her despite her temper outbursts. I think the theme's aim was to make one realize what a jungle it can be out there, and how frail personality can be, what people can come to in dire circumstances. ?? Well, what it DID make think was: The tough girl deserved it all!!!! As someone said, Rosetta didn't see the whole picture. By the end, I couldn't have stood one more minute of her.

Excellent acting.