Page - 52 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/02

52 | Stefanie Knauss www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/2, 45–66 Thus in their films, the Dardennes pay close attention to the complexity of identity in which the impact of social factors such as gender is carefully negoti- ated with individual self-determination. I will turn now to the analysis of Roset- ta (1999) and Two Days, One Night (2014), with their respectively more critical and more affirmative visions of self, relationship, family and work. Rosetta: WORK AS FREEDOM, RELATIONSHIP AS BURDEN? What at first glance is most remarkable about Rosetta, the protagonist of the film Rosetta (1999), is her intense bodily presence and energy, even if – or, per- haps, in particular when – she seems to lose her fight against the world of capi- talism, damaged by unhealthy eating habits and living conditions and physical as well as psychological demands that go beyond the capacities of a teenager. This impression is mediated by the handheld “corps-caméra”, as the Dardennes describe the merging of the camera with the bodies of its operators to form a being of its own,14 that follows Rosetta, moves and even breathes with her, so that her body – her face; her hurting, cramping belly; her hands that want noth- ing but work – becomes familiar like our own (fig. 3). Commenting on the first sequence of the film, when Rosetta races through the factory after being sacked, hunting down a colleague she considers responsible for her losing her work and holding on to the lockers so hard that they are pulled away with her as she is removed by security, Joseph Mai writes, “our perspec- tive is entirely and helplessly within the movements of bodies.”15 Rather than 14 See Mai 2007. 15 Mai 2010, 69. Fig. 3: Film still, Rosetta (FR/BE 1999), 00:49:53.