Revisiting 1999: The Top 10 Films of the Year, #7 --- Rosetta (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

Here's what we've covered so far:

The Top 10 Films of 1999:

Intro: Introduction: The Best Films of 1999
10 - The Limey (Steven Soderbergh)
9 - Affliction (Paul Schrader)
8- American Movie (Chris Smith)


Rosetta is typical Dardenne’s where we spend the first ten minutes or so closely following the subject around, watching intently on the subjects face and how they react to what’s going on in their life. Usually the camera is hand-held and bouncing up and down, right in tow. The only sounds we hear are breathing or the natural sounds that surround the subject. It’s the invitation by the Dardenne’s to participate in something that is a compete 180 from the conventional dramatic experiences we’re used to seeing.


Rosetta (Emilie Duquenne) is a 17 year old girl who lives with her alcoholic mother in a trailer park. She has just been let go from her job and is desperately seeking work. Like most of the Dardenne’s films the feeling of urgency to get work, make money, or have a human connection is achingly palpable. Here we see Rosetta struggle to get through the days on her own, but she is as determined a protagonist as we’ve seen in a film, and she refuses to let her alcoholic mother, or the tests of the streets get her down as she repeats a touching mantra every night before she sleeps: “Your name is Rosetta. My name is Rosetta. You found a job. I found a job. You've got a friend. I've got a friend. You have a normal life. I have a normal life. You won't fall in a rut. I won't fall in a rut. Good night. Good night.”

The mantra is poignant and crushing the first time we hear it. Rosetta is trying to convince herself of her worth and that she is different than her mother, and will not follow the same life pattern. We get the sense that Rosetta is working for her mother, too. Not that she necessarily wants to, but her wages help support a mother who “only likes to drink and fuck”. Rosetta’s determination to get away from the lifestyle her mother leads has an affect on her physically – there is a scene where she takes pills and runs a hair dryer over her stomach…perhaps she has an ulcer?

Rosetta meets a nice boy (Riquet) around her age who informs her that a job has opened up at his fathers waffle stand and he can get her a job. Despite Rosetta being is icy to him at first he continues to show her grace and compassion, and in typical Dardenne fashion nothing is spelled out for us; rather, we’re asked to watch as things unfold (gasp! What an idea!), and then put the pieces of Rosetta’s reasoning together.

As is the case with most of the Dardenne’s movies things unfold in a series of vignettes more or less that take us by surprise. They don’t take us by surprise because they’re aesthetically shocking or there’s some plot twist we weren’t suspecting; they take us by surprise because of how true the moments are. The characters in the Dardenne’s films are driven by need; whether that is the need to find a job (Rosetta), the need to atone for huge mistakes (L’Enfant), or the need for mentorship in order to fill a massive void (Le Fils).

There’s a telling scene in Rosetta where Riquet is drowning in a river. She waits a long time to do anything about it. She later admits to him that she didn’t want him to get out, because had he drowned she could have taken his hours at the waffle cart. Rosetta isn’t necessarily a sympathetic character because she isn’t driven by the conventional emotions we’re programmed to believe all protagonists must have (for instance a different film might have Rosetta save the boy, fall in love, start a family, and take over the waffle business with him); no, Rosetta is driven by economic necessity which has no emotion attached to it…it’s survival of the fittest, and there’s no time for superfluous things like love (she even rats out Riquet, who is selling homemade waffles under the counter, trying to usurp his position as head waffle salesman).

Here is a young woman who only wants a normal life. She is so determined to have that life that she will challenge any adult who is trying to take it away from her. In a powerful scene where her boss at the waffle stand (Olivier Gourme from Le Fils) tells her he must suspend her job for a few weeks, she is irate and saddened. She tells him that she only wants “a life like his” and she doesn’t understand why he is trying to take that away from her.

The ending is one of the strongest of any film in 1999. It’s a powerful moment we’ve come to except from the Dardenne’s. We’re asked to just stare at Rosetta’s face one last time. Despite her determinism to do this whole thing on her own, she needs to release herself of the burden. The ending is that moment of silent grace we come to expect from the Dardenne’s as she stares at Riquet who comes to her aide despite her wanting him to drown. They stare at each other (Riquet is wisely left out of frame) and we see a shattered Rosetta, who despite what she sees as her many flaws, realizing she has a friend. Maybe now she’ll start believing her mantra. Like in the Le Fils the scene is silent, the hard breathing from working hard and running around fills the silence, and the audience is left in a contemplative silence thinking about how in a mere 90 minutes we’ve learned about the character, and about ourselves.

Rosetta won the Palme d'Or at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival as well as the best actress prize for its star Duquenne. I don’t think it’s necessarily the strongest Dardenne Brothers film, but it shows a pair of filmmakers who know how to use the neo-realist/minimalist cinema to tell a story that is simultaneously heartbreaking and beautiful. It sounds cliché to say this, but…you learn a little more about yourself after watching a Dardenne Brothers film.

Counting Down the Zeroes 2003: The Son

Here's my second review for the year 2003 for Film for the Soul's Counting Down the Zeroes project -- click the link and check out all of the other fine entries for the year 2003.

I think Roger Ebert said it best when he reviewed The Son upon its 2003 theatrical release: “All a critic can bring to it is admiration. It needs no insight or explanation.” So, what else is there to say then? If I say the film is brilliant, then how is it brilliant? That’s the thing about the films of the Dardenne Brothers, it’s not so much how it is brilliant – the aesthetics are your typical (seemingly) simple minimalist tactics: over the shoulder shots, voyeuristic tight shots, and long takes with no musical score to tap us on the shoulder and tell us it’s time to feel something – it’s the why that makes it different. The Dardenne’s make films about something. They rely on the audiences expectations that something has to happen, and then revel in letting things just play out with a total disregard for how popular film and television have trained us to see a scene. The Dardenne’s look at their subjects with the precision of an expert artisan; they measure, assay, and then proudly display to us their findings. And Ebert’s right, all one can do is show their admiration, because really, what filmmakers trust their audiences enough to understand that it is in the small, quiet moments of the banality of everyday life where the most profound truths can be discovered.


The Dardenne’s finest film is indeed The Son, a film with a title that aptly represents their style of filmmaking: simple and to the point. We know there is a man named Olivier (played by Olivier Gourmet who one the Best Actor prize at Cannes that year) and that he works at a trade school. He teaches carpentry to boys fresh out of juvenile prison. One day he is approached to take a boy named Francis. He cannot because they are full; however, Olivier sees something in the boy and begins stalking him, sizing him up and trying to find out as much as he can about him. Countless films have trained audiences to think that one of the following will occur: Olivier sees potential in the boy and will turn him into a proper citizen through hard labor and lots of on-camera soul searching, Olivier is a pedophile who stalks children, or Olivier is the boy’s father. None of these are true, although the first instance does sort of occur as Olivier tells the woman in charge of placement that he can take the boy in his wood shop.

We get small slices of insight into Olivier’s life. One night after work Olivier is visited by a woman. They trade pleasantries, but Olivier seems detached – fiercely focused on what seems like the rude and inappropriate practice of soup – while his guest stands and looks at him. We come to find out that this is Olivier’s ex-wife. She is getting re-married and is pregnant. Olivier wonders why she had to tell him this today. She says because I am off on Wednesday’s. He replies “why this Wednesday.” It’s exchanges like this that make me adore the Dardenne’s and extol them as two of the most important filmmakers working today. The way they carefully mete out the information in the scene – so that the viewer is now assuming the correlations between the films title and Olivier and his ex-wife – is a perfect example of how, when used properly, the effects of minimalist cinema are some of the most powerful tools a filmmaker can use.

When Olivier begins to take a more blatant, vested interest in Francis certain truths are revealed that I dare not give away. We soon begin to see the relevance of the film’s title, and we begin to see that The Son is a film with many religious allegories (work/labor as penance, grace, faith through works/deeds versus forgiveness, revenge/forgiveness); however, it is not interested in your generic apprenticeship type storyline. The two have brief conversations, usually interrupted by work or table soccer, but eventually Olivier finds out what Francis did to get locked up, and it’s from that point on that the film starts to unravel deep pain and truths that are the rarest of commodities in film.

I hesitate to divulge too much more information – sure the film has been out for six years now, but if you haven’t seen the film I implore you to do so now. This is the type of film that can elevate the soul to places that we normally associate with the great pieces of classical music, poetry, literature, philosophical or religious inquiry, etc. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, as cheesy as it sounds, this film has the ability to change you, and I wouldn’t want to spoil that by giving away plot points – even though a film as good as this rises above any kind of “spoiler warning”.

The aesthetics of the film are typical of the Dardenne’s and of this particular film movement. The Dardenne’s simply observe the action in the film – they let the audience watch intently knowing that they don’t need to “punch up” any scenes with visual or dramatic élan. The film is simple, and there isn’t a lot that “happens” in traditional film speak, but despite the so-called simplicities of The Son it is a film that is extremely intense and superbly crafted. You watch with that kind of undivided attention as if you were listening to a really good lecture or trying to eavesdrop on an interesting conversation in a coffee shop.

The plot is not sitcomy. There are moments where Olivier is alone with Francis and we assume the worst. Specifically I’m thinking of the scene where the two are cutting wood with a saw, and because of how we’ve been trained by lesser films we think something bad is going to happen; but no, the Dardenne’s aren’t interested in that, they’re interested in the craft of what Olivier does – they film the scene and watch him with just as much precision and care as Olivier is applying to sawing the wood…it’s an amazing scene that, despite seeming simple enough, is a rarity in film.

The film is a masterpiece because the Dardenne’s understand this simple truth: when adult mentors make an impact in a young person’s life, the change that may occur rarely looks like the way it is portrayed in movies like Freedom Writers or Good Will Hunting. The process of transformation is usually a slow burn (I’m speaking form experience here as I’m a teacher at a school with the same kinds of kids as Francis), and the Dardenne’s use of minimalist staples help punctuate that sentiment; sure there are epiphanies, but rarely do they occur in such an over-the-top manner. The banality of it all is actually what makes The Son work – what makes it uber-real, here the banality is a good thing, a platform for the Dardenne’s to show that it’s often in the banal that the most change occurs.

Yes, Olivier is teaching Francis a trade, but he’s doing much more than that, and when you see the movie (or if you have you know what I’m speaking about here), and you’re made aware of certain information that the characters have, it makes the ending all the more powerful. Why? Because of what it not done. Too often we have been trained to expect something to “happen”, because everything in film these days has to have foreshadowing or a “big” climax; a crescendo or coda that really makes the viewer feel like they experienced something. That’s Hollywood, though; in real life it’s the small moments that make the difference, and they often go missed if you’re not looking for them. My vocational experiences have shown me that these are the moments when the marginalized, troubled kids like Francis learn…not in shouting matches or big emotional breakdowns, but in silence, working side by side – by simply being. No one in film understands this more than the Dardenne’s, and when the film ends in typical Dardenne fashion, just as banal as what has preceded it, all you can do is shake your head in gratitude that somebody got it right.

The Son is a masterpiece without the pomp or pretension found in the minimalist cinema of John Cassavetes or Lars von Trier. The Dardenne’s are able to evoke great emotion from the simplest (without drawing attention to how stripped back those moments are like the aforementioned filmmakers) through silence and astute observation. There’s something refreshing about the way the Dardenne’s have managed to even strip back elements of the minimalist movement to create a fly-on-the-wall type of film that allows us to sit and breathe and ponder next to these characters.

So, Ebert was right. I haven’t added much insight with this “review” into the themes this film broaches. Part of that is because I don’t want to give away some of the films deeper moments by ruining things for first time viewers, but ultimately I think it proves Ebert’s point that when one talks about The Son all the critic can do is admire it. There’s no critical deconstruction necessary because the Dardenne’s leave it all out there in their film; they don’t deal with nuances, but they’re not over-the-top, either. They simply observe and then proceed in displaying what they set out to do. I guess the most suitable way to wrap this up is with another quote from Ebert’s great review: “The Son needs no insight or explanation. It sees everything and explains all. It is as assured and flawless a telling of sadness and joy as I have ever seen.” There is no need for me to further explain the brilliance of this film. Ebert, obviously, says it better than I ever could, and it's pretty clear to this humble blogger that The Son is without question the best film of 2003.

Goodbye Solo: A Beautiful Marriage of Minimalism and Melodrama

Two men look at each other. They stare, not needing to say a word. They both know what will happen, and so does the audience. Moments like this one are rare in films, but somehow Ramin Bahrani has created a film where there are multiple instances like it – where the viewer is allowed to have the scene wash over them, instead of being bludgeoned over the head with the themes the filmmaker wishes to convey. The film is Goodbye Solo, and it’s not just a masterpiece in minimalism, melodrama, and subdued filmmaking; it’s a masterpiece of cinema, a rare film that transcends its simplistic indie aesthetics (although simplistic, the seemingly non existent élan of this film is more impressive than most films that try to be indie and arty) and elates the viewer placing them in the most wonderful of contemplative reveries.

I’m new to Bahrani, so although I understand that his previous films Chop Shop and Man Push Cart are indebted to the neo-realist movement, I cannot say for sure what specific moments of those films may or may not be alluded to in Goodbye Solo. All I know is that I immediately bumped the aforementioned films to the top of the Netflix queue. Goodbye Solo doesn’t feel so much neo-realist (it’s not driven by the everyday occurrences of its characters; and it’s definitely driven by a melodramatic plot) as it just feels real and natural; a perfect (and masterful) marriage of minimalism and melodrama. Bahrani loves to let the camera linger on his subjects so that we may ponder the existential dilemmas they face. It’s rare to see a filmmaker in the 21st century with such patience.

The story is a simple one: We begin the film in medias res in Winston-Salem, NC as Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane), a cab driver from Senegal, is laughing at something his passenger William (Red West) has told him. We come to find out that the specific bit of conversation that makes Solo guffaw is that William has propositioned Solo with a task that at first seems like William is just having a bad day, but as Solo begins to integrate himself in William’s life, sees that the man is deathly serious. The proposition is that William will pay Solo 1,000 dollars to drive him to Blowing Rock National Park where he will jump off the cliff and kill himself. If you think I just disclosed a valuable piece of the puzzle to this mystery I’m afraid you’re mistaken, and perhaps when you see the film (and you should see it) it will stretch you in ways no other film to this point. What I mean is that there is nothing conventional going on here. Bahrani is not interested in the mystery of whether William will kill himself, because William never speaks of needing a return cab ride from Solo, and once Solo attempts to befriend William and become his personal driver, he begins to see the William checking off the final entries on his itinerary: closing bank accounts, giving away personal items, etc.

Yes, Solo does befriend William, and yes they share some moments together that supply a brief reprise from the unavoidable tragic end Solo must usher William towards. However, that does not make the film depressing. One of my favorite adages Ebert created was: “no good film is depressing, only bad ones.” And indeed this film elevates you to another cinematic plane. I was reminded of Mike Figgis’ Leaving Las Vegas, another film about a man determined to kill himself only to be momentarily interrupted by a caring, refreshingly human soul. The two characters in that film, Ben and Sera, share a lot of behavioral similarities with William and Solo. The simplicity and subtlety of the film also reminded me of one of my favorite films from last year Wendy and Lucy. In that film there is also a refined, subdued aesthetic that draws attention to the long takes of peoples faces – moments where the audience can read the eyes of the characters, and long after a scene is over, the camera lingers just a little bit longer so that we may contemplate the events that have just unfolded.

During their friendship we’re let into Solo’s life as he is married with a child on the way and a brilliant step-daughter, Alex. She’s smart for her age, but she’s not one of those too-cute child actors who exists only as a plot contrivance, she brings a sweetness and innocence (even though she’s smart, the film is realistic in the sense that she doesn’t know everything) into Solo and William’s relationship that cuts through sadness. Her relationship with Solo, again, seems born out of reality. These scenes remind me of something out of a David Gordon Green film (who like Bahrani is a native of North Carolina): This all just seems right…this IS how these people would talk, react, and live their life. Solo is having some trouble, though. His wife doesn’t want him to interview for a flight attendants position because she doesn’t want him to be out of state with a baby on the way. He claims that she only wants him to try her plan, and that she doesn’t trust him with his plan. They decide to take a break, and throughout this process Solo becomes more and more interested in William.

The film is not about what Solo will do for William, and it’s not about William’s decision to kill himself. Sure, there are secrets revealed and epiphianic moments throughout their short friendship, but it’s more about how Solo changes, not how he tries to convince William to not go through with it all. Like Sera in Leaving Las Vegas, the film was always about what Ben did for her. As she looks into the camera at the end of that film and looks straight at the audience, you see a changed person, an individual who has done some soul searching, and – compared to who she was at the beginning of the film – is somewhat healed. So too does Solo change. As he looks at Red in those long takes Bahrani loves, we see a man who sees himself in Red. This is what he’ll become if he does not take seriously his family obligations. It’s not enough just to love them, and as he looks at William, knowing one of his big secrets, we see in Solo’s eyes that he will not allow himself to make the same mistakes.

Bahrani wisely metes out crucial pieces of information sparingly. Never once does he go for one big over-the-top melodramatic moment; rather, he lets the events unfold naturally. In a crucial scene towards the end of the film watch the way Savane as Solo plays the scene. Nothing is overdone, and we see a man who lives his life with a carefree attitude, who we see at the beginning of the film heartily, and genuinely, laughing with pleasure at life, evolve into someone who has a better understanding of life’s responsibilities.

The acting here is phenomenal, and not just by Savane, but by the old veteran Red West, too. Here’s a man who looks like something out of an old oater. I was reminded of the great actor Richard Farnsworth while watching him. He plays William as a man who isn’t necessarily opposed to Solo’s prodding, just as long as he doesn’t go too deep. “I don’t give a shit” is a favorite phrase of William’s, and I assume it would be the favorite saying for a man who plans to kill himself in 10 days. West plays Williams, though, as a man who has a deeper reasoning for the things he does and the places he frequents before his final cab ride, and he also seems to be a man who has a deeper reasoning for not wanting Solo, or his step-daughter Alexis, around too often.

The ending is about as perfect as an ending can be. Bahrani lets silence drive the end of his film, and when Solo and William just stare at each other, we thank Bahrani for not ruining the scene with unnecessary exposition. There’s a scene where Solo looks out over a viewpoint that is caked in fog, and as Solo looks out on the vast expanse of nothingness, I was reminded of the scene from Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise where the three characters, who are also on a journey of sorts, also come across a viewpoint of nothingness. It’s a powerful, contemplative moment, and like Jarmusch, Bahrani lets the gusts of wind be the only sound the audience hears during this pivotal moment.

Since I’m so late to the Bahrani bandwagon it shouldn’t shock anyone when I say he is clearly one of the leaders of the new wave of filmmaking; he’s someone who makes honest films in dishonest times, and even though they may be based in neo-realism, his films actually succeed where most neo-realist films fail: they place you in a specific place without having to feel the onus of reality; in other words I could see myself watching this film numerous times without it ever feeling stale (and let’s face it, some neo-realist work feels stale after awhile). There’s a subtle aesthetic at work in Bahrani’s film, an entity that deceives you into thinking that everything looks “easy”; but, everything Bahrani and his actors do in Goodbye Solo is extremely difficult and rarely found in modern films. You just don’t run across films like this very often. It’s easily one of the best films of 2009.