‘Rosetta’ is a film that sincerely utilises the Dogme 95 principles established by Von Trier and Vinterberg in 1995. The rules are simple: no pretensions during the filmmaking process. No special effects, additional sound, fancy camera angles and so on.

Through the titular character we are drawn into a world of desperate loneliness, a realisation that only dawns once you’ve finished watching the film, and have had the chance to ruminate upon it. Rosetta is a teenager who has been forced to grow up much too soon; she is forced to play the mother to her own alcoholic, whorish mother, and the two eke out a bitter querulous existence in a trailer park.
Rosetta doesn’t have any friends; she doesn’t have time for it. She desperately wishes for a job, fighting with employers when she is unfairly fired and running, always running, whether it’s from potential employer to potential employer, towards and away from her home, or away from her friend whom she betrayed. The camera is always focused either on her or her POV and we live her world through her eyes.

There are several tender moments when Rosetta isn’t on the prowl and she slows down, to catch a glimpse of “the other side” or a world of normalcy. In such moments, she is often hiding behind a door, watching another person, whether it’s her newly formed friend (she doesn’t know they are friends yet) or her employer as they go about their business. She lives a life of routine, painstakingly dull and redundant, and the entire film has a subliminal edge of fear; this is cleverly illustrated when she goes to bed one night in her friend’s flat, and talks to herself, saying that she has made a friend, she has a job, but most importantly, that she won’t be left behind. It’s almost like a conversation with an invisible friend’ or maybe she’s just trying to convince herself, scarcely allowing herself to believe that good can happen in her life. She just wants to fit in and be normal, and believes that getting a job would achieve this.

Her belly aches from time to time, almost as though she is carrying a child inside of her, or maybe even twins, one her pathetic mother, and two a version of her that just wants to be free at all costs. She lands a job by betraying her friend…only to realise it didn’t do squat. She still has to live her painful life, still has to take care of her mother, still has to live in her crappy home, still doesn’t fit in. Despite her bullheaded nature of not quitting, her inner tenderness and her actual years are revealed when, after a fight with her mother she ends up falling in a bog. Mama, Mama she cries and for once she permits herself to act her age. This scene is emotionally devastating to witness, to see the invisible wrinkled lines where fresh and crisp youth ought to be. The ending scene is incredibly poignant when she replaces the gas cylinder and carries it to her trailer, with the cylinder perfectly representing the huge burden she is carrying in her life until she falls down, it being much too heavy for her weak and young shoulders. All hope isn’t lost though, her friend appears and while he seems pissed off because of his lost job he helps her to her feet. She might not fit in, but at least there is someone who cares about her.

The Dardenne brothers have brilliantly created a character perfectly played by the immensely talented Émilie Dequenne to portray a frantic world of quiet despair and the fearful dread that beats beneath a life that just wants to soar in the sky but is unfortunately chained to the muddy earth. It is a film that you might not like at first, but the more thought and consideration you give it, the more you realise you just witnessed something tremendously powerful and special.

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