ROSETTA A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
Meaningless minutia. In the place of anything approaching a compelling narrative, ROSETTA's co-writers and co-directors Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, ladle on the trivial like sugar on cereal.
Rosetta, played with the emotive power of a stone by Emilie Dequenne, lives a hardscrabble life in a Belgium trailer park with her alcoholic mother (Anne Yernaux). A homely young woman with stringy brown hair and empty eyes, Rosetta is an angst-filled youth who leads a near vacuous life.
The directors, using artsy handheld cameras with lots of close-ups and fast blurry pans, show Rosetta's miserable life with pseudo-realism. And do they ever show it in repetitive detail.
We know, for example, precisely how Rosetta cuts her toast. She uses long, slow vertical slices. The resulting rectangle is then cut on the diagonal until she produces five bite-sized pieces from each slice. This long and laborious toast-eating episode manages to be the highlight of her evening with her boyfriend, Riquet (Fabrizio Rongione).
We also get to see Rosetta drink and then refill her sports bottle again and again. We watch her unlace her shoes, time and time again, in order to put on her boots. Most home videos are much more eventful and exciting.
The story is so devoid of tension that you sit there hoping against hope that some horrible tragedy will befall Rosetta so that the story will finally get in gear. (In order to pass the time, one can reflect on how this movie has managed to show up on best and worst of the year lists from major critics. Okay, so the reflection is more on how a critic could have stayed awake long enough to put it on a best list since the movie commits the cardinal cinematic sin -- it is excruciatingly boring.)
One of the film's themes explores the idea that job creation is a zero-sum game. In order for you to get a job, someone else must lose theirs. "There's a job available," Riquet tells Rosetta after she knocks him off of his bike for unexplained reasons. "My boss fired someone." This theme that the only way to get a job is to steal someone else's will repeat itself later in the story. The naiveté of this whole economic argument is stunning.
In a season in which movies are all trying to outdo each other in longevity, Rosetta is a standard length film. But so little transpires, it feels longer than a three-hour epic.
ROSETTA runs 1:35. It is rated R for language and would be acceptable for teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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