35 out of 44 people found the following review helpful:

Masterpiece of Cinematic Humanism

A Customer from London, 14th April, 2005

This is an amazing film. For those who are willing to think and feel it will provide you with a profoundly moving portrait of a fellow human being. Everything about Rosetta confirms its greatness; the cinematography is perfect for the project, script is solid, the acting excels, Direction and editing are just right. If you are incapable of wanting to feel, and prefer your entertainment of the anaesthetic variety (commercial rubbish), want to be told what to think (dramatic ends where all the plot wraps up neatly), and are only willing to feel emotion when a Hollywood Director manipulates your tear glands for you without you thinking, then steer clear. But if you believe Cinema is Art, and all art should describe the human condition, then Rosetta is a masterpiece.

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11 out of 12 people found the following review helpful:

Less Waffle = More Bite

AnotherNightIn from Merseyside, 26th September, 2004

The story is painfully simple - teenage Rosetta wants a job - a splint to bind her life together, as she struggles to keep her alcoholic mum from trading sexual favours for booze. It is in the telling that it achieves it's power.

The script (and it is easy to forget that you are not watching 'reality') is tightly packed with small and seemingly obscure incidents, which build layer on layer, not to any all-revealing pay-off, but to a patiently crafted authenticity that's mesmerising.

Lots of people will find it all too slow and relentless, but this bold and unflinching film goes out on a limb to tell a bleak story in a very muted way and as such it offers the kind of emotional experience you won't easily find elsewhere.

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10 out of 13 people found the following review helpful:

Realism is not necessarily entertaining

pesquera from inverness, 23rd June, 2004

How many times can you watch a teenage girl pull on a pair of wellies?
How about 10 times?

I have no doubt that this is realistic and no doubt that that the repetitiveism is a tool used for emphasis, however, it's dull, it tells me nothing. Life is hard, no doubt. Giving this film a prize was a major cop out. However, the girl who played Rosetta was fantastic.

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9 out of 13 people found the following review helpful:

So you think you're having a bad day?

Jan from London, 6th April, 2004

Spare a thought or Rosetta a feisty independent young woman who is trying desperately to make ends meet while keeping her mother off the booze and from turning tricks in the trailer park in which they live.

Set in a dull, grey Belgian town, which only adds to the unrelenting misery, Rosetta will consider nearly anything in order to secure a job to get her and her mother out of the rut in which they find themselves. She is in fact quite a despicable character who you wouldn't want as a friend, let alone an enemy!

Acting aside, which is superb from Dequenne, this film will bring you down, whatever mood you are in. It should come with a warning!

Also, this film leaves more questions than answers, in itself no bad thing, though in this film it is irritating and you are left why wandering why you bothered with the film as you are no more edified at the end of the film than you were when it started!

Sorry, this film does itself no favours!

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Bleakly brilliant

Leosteve from , 11th March, 2009

Yet again these remarkable artist brothers have crafted a seemingly simple plot with complex rounded and superbly acted characters you almost believe are real. You are taken on an emotional journey which is unforced and utterly unsentimental. The ending is unexpected but satisfying. Rosetta, like the main character so-named, is tough and frustrating at times, but the journey is poignant and worthwhile.

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Rosetta - an independent masterpiece

Chewbacca from from Cambridge, 14th February, 2009

The Dardenne brothers deliver an adrenaline shot of reality in this subtle, yet masterful piece of work. The plot, if you can call it that, follows the troubled figure of Rosetta, a young woman coping alone in the world with nothing much more than a trailer park existence and a drunk for a mother. However, if you want a Hollywood rags-to-riches tale, then you need to look elsewhere; what the Dardennes put on screen is almost cinema verite, with its portrayal of poverty, desperation and a central character that is deeply engaging, but equally disturbing. This is a worthy antidote to the saccharine of big corporate features.

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rosetta

gardens from from Bath, 10th February, 2009

Excellent...highly recommend. Non-sentimental tale of young woman struggling to survive...

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bleak but important film

MUNCH from , 22nd August, 2008

Rosetta the story of a teenager living in a caravanpark with an alcoholic mother who sells herself to the park manager for alcohol isnt the film you would seek out if you are in the doldrums. The running theme throughout this film is the refusal by Rossetta to bend to the pressures she is under and basically give up the spirit shown is admirable given her circumstanses and there is at the end the tiniest glimmer of ahappy ending. Good world cinema.

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