Rosetta (1999, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)

Superior Cannes winner from 1999. Rosetta came from Belgium from Dardenne brothers. Rosetta is young girl who tries to escape from her miserable life, but not from miserable people around her. Her mother is an alcoholic who sells her body to camp owner in order to pay the rent. Although Rosetta almost hates her, she tries everything to improve their lives, but it looks that everything is against her. Film starts with her fire from work (literally, she is taken out from factory) and the rest of film deals with her fight for work. It looks that she's not desperate - she's agressive, angry but she's not strong, but in her struggle she lost her dignity and humanity. She betrayed the only person in her life who showed sympathy and probably love to her, young guy Riquet - in order to substitute him on the bakery benchboard.
What a misery... To loose a friend because of low-payed job. But, from her point of view, it's not ammoral, it's just like what it is. The world is hard place to live and you must do everything you can to deserve good and respect life.
Mostly shot from handheld camera, Rosetta succesfully shows intense and almost hysteric life of title character. There is no aestetic here, no beatiful images, no some original camera work, just her life in all his reality.
Emilie Dequenne as Rosetta was great choice and key of the film's success. In her debut she gave all her energy in this role(according to some reports, she spent some time in similar environment to prepare to the role) and deserved the Best Actress Prize in Cannes. Rosetta refers greatly to the Italian Neorealism and British hyper-realistic movies from 60's (like Ken Loach and Tony Richardson films) in theme about homeless and poor people from bottom of society. But, besides all these qualities, this film is not so great as all prizes will suggest. If you see list of nominated movies in Cannes 1999 you'll see that, IMHO, that competition was not so "rough" as usual. There were Lynch with Straight Story, Greenaway with 8 1/2 Women, Almodovar with Todo Sobre Mi Madre but others. It wasn't unforgettable year in Cannes...