Watching a film by the Dardenne brothers can be like someone throwing dirt in your face. Their stock in trade is gritty, warts-and-all realism, and this early film rolls in the mud with such abandon it makes their later works seem tame in comparison. Palme d’Or winner Emilie Dequenne stars as a steel-hard teen so determined not to end up like her alcoholic wastrel mother that she is in constant motion.
Whether checking on her secret fish traps, racing into town to look for work or dashing back to the squalid camper she and her mom call home, Rosetta is in flight from a sea of personal demons. Yet, the viewer feels an icy ambivalence to her plight.
As the film makes clear, the law of the jungle is in full effect, and Rosetta’s instinct for survival easily overpowers any commonly held notion of civil society. Not surpisingly, the Dardennes have created a powerful and profound film that neither judges nor resolves.
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