Rosetta(1999)
dir. Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne
All Rosetta wants is a job and a normal life.
Where to watch: Streaming on HBO MaxLetterboxd ↗
Rosetta is a teenager living in a caravan park in a Belgian town with her mother, who drinks. She has been fired from job after job and wants one thing: steady work, so she can have what she calls a normal life. The camera stays close behind her as she goes door to door, takes a job at a waffle stand, and makes choices to keep it.
Why it’s here
The punk move is the refusal to comfort you: the Dardennes shoot with a handheld camera close to Rosetta's back, with no music and no speeches, and never ask you to pity her or admire her. She is hard, stubborn and sometimes unkind, and the film respects her too much to soften that. The pedagogy is in what it makes visible. It shows how being poor and unemployed becomes a full-time job, how the fear of losing work can push a person to act against the people next to her, and how a regular wage stands for dignity in a society that has stopped promising it. It is sparse and can feel bleak, with a violent scene and a suicide attempt, so it suits adults and older teens. Critics were nearly unanimous in praise, and it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
Where This Film Lives
Read Alongside
Books that share a topic, theme, or setting with this film.
Hand to Mouth
Linda Tirado
Why do poor people make bad choices? She was one. Here's why.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Nickel and Dimed
Barbara Ehrenreich
She worked the minimum wage jobs. The math doesn't work.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Sarah J. Maas
Survival instincts don't stop at the Wall.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
A Long Walk to Water
Linda Sue Park
He walked across Sudan to survive. She walks for water every day.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Amal Unbound
Aisha Saeed
The debt wasn't hers. The cage is.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Automating Inequality
Virginia Eubanks
When algorithms become the new welfare office.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Barefoot Gen, Vol. 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima
Keiji Nakazawa
Hiroshima, drawn by a child who lived it.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Bartleby, the Scrivener
Herman Melville
"I would prefer not to," the original refusal.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST