Rosetta

A teenager living in a trailer park with her alcoholic mother is determined to escape her marginal life and make something of herself. But the odds are stacked against her…

Former documentarians, the Dardenne brothers hit on a emphatically authentic naturalism with an aesthetic involving long, handheld travelling shots, no score, the body moving through space in real time. Rosetta was their second dramatic feature, and it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes from a jury headed by David Cronenberg. In the title role, Émilie Dequenne, 17, won the Palme for best actress. The film had a tremendous impact in its native Belgium, where legislation was passed to support employment opportunities for young people, known as the “Rosetta plan”. Sadly Émilie Dequenne passed away in May this year from cancer at the age of 43.

Rosetta is indeed a great film, but it has a fearsome unity, an unshakable commitment to rendering the contours of a destitute life and the ever present possibility of spiritual transformation, that are altogether uncommon.

Kent Jones, Criterion

A stunning and remarkable achievement… a luminous and compassionate account of a young woman struggling to climb out of the swamp of want.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

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