This will contain some spoilers for Rosetta and Mouchette
The epitome of someone that I would hate to meet or encounter, much less get to know, Émilie Dequenne’s Rosetta never manages to win over my sympathy, and that’s perfectly fine. The Dardennes employ a, literal, in-your-face cinema-vérité style of camerawork in which the camera spends much of the film no more than a meter stick’s distance from the hot-tempered protagonist, creating a claustrophobic and rebarbative environment for the viewer to participate in her tribulations. The film seems to be, at least partially, modeled after/homaging/critiquing Bresson’s Mouchette. As an exercise in improving a supposed masterwork, Rosetta gets gold stars all around, besting the overrated Bresson film in nearly every department. Filmed in the latter half of the 1960s, there is no excuse for Mouchette, unrealistic and unsympathetic as it is, to fall as flat as it does, with terrible acting, obvious and choppy editing gimmicks, and simulated tears that are so glaringly fake primarily because of the lead’s complete lack of emotions.
The big difference between the films, though, other than quality, is the concluding theme of each film. Where Mouchette seems to turn its protagonist into a harbinger for the cruelty of humanity, Rosetta depicts dual acts of cruelty, both received and given by the lead, which finally culminates in the more optimistic and affecting expression of forgiveness. While Rosetta threatens to suffer the same collapse of character and shameless surrender to death that Mouchette does, Rosetta avoids mimicking Mouchette’s successful second attempt at suicide thanks to the unlikely arrival of compassion in Riquet, the man who was coldheartedly betrayed by Rosetta in the film’s middle act, which I found heartwrenching. The love and forgiveness shown here is such a thematic reversal of the conclusion of Bresson’s film that I could easily be convinced that the Dardenne brothers made Rosetta for the solitary purpose of correcting the misanthropic outcome that Bresson unleashed on Mouchette.
It is this act that also shifts my entire perception of the film, to the point that I believe Riquet to be the most important character of the film. Without his act in the final moments of the film, Rosetta’s hostility, selfishness, and sado-masochism would serve no purpose other than as a portrait of a troubled individual. I thought that I could have argued that the film would still be able to function as a vision of the struggles of the working class, but this is incorrect, as Rosetta is the only person who throws tantrums and is consistently irate despite her luck and social status. Riquet gets laid off and cordially walks out, no security guards required. Rosetta’s mother may be too sedated from alcoholism to fight back against Rosetta, but she still comes across as a victim to a girl who would be hot-tempered in any environment or lifestyle. While following Rosetta, learning about her behavior and relationships, is, fortunately, rivetting, it serves no purpose without Riquet, who saves not only Rosetta, but the film itself.