Word: worlds
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...attempts to secure other forms of work, but is continually turned down. The search continues, eventually becoming an obsession in her young life, to the point that Rosetta loses touch with her mother, her best friend, and eventually herself. Fortunately, in examining the minute details of this deplorable world, the narrative begins to extrapolate beyond mere plot points, and becomes a searing indictment of the system that Rosetta attempts to indict...
...What bolsters this assertion is the immediate clarity of Rosetta's uncompromisingly bleak vision of the title character's world. In their sophomore outing, the Dardennes have made an art of stripping cinema down to its bare bones. There are no designed interiors--the entire film was shot using locations in the Dardennes' hometown of Seraing, Belgium--or any other ornaments. The photography is dominated by shaky hand-held camera-work, lighting is sparsely natural and casting is reduced to four principal actors. It is initially frustrating and somewhat trying to a North American audience, used...
...This, coupled with the fact that Rosetta appears in every scene, lends to what is initially bizarre behavior--running helter-skelter through a factory simply because she was fired. The film creates a sense of continuity, because the world, from our view, does not exist as the town, her work or anything beyond Rosetta's skewed perspective. Tight camera work creates comfort, which transmutates into sympathy, although the Dardennes do not actively court affection. Rosetta makes uncomfortable choices, but, instead of condemning her character, blame is firmly placed on her society...
...therein lies the problem of the A.R.T'.s Ivanov. Yeremin may want his actors to fade like tiny points of light into the world around them, but Chekov's text is meant to act as a magnifying glass, to make the world of social conventions and thinly veiled subtexts appear larger than life. Chekov is the great playwright of the strained relationships humans have with themselves and with one another; looking in Chekov for the larger metaphysical themes of man in landscape that Yeremin's visuals try to evoke is a lost cause. Yes, Ivanov is about loneliness and isolation...
...world is getting a crash course in international trade this week as it ponders the clash of visions and interests at the meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle. Meshing the interests of the 130-plus governments at the meetings would be hard enough, without the added complexity of the kaleidoscope of interest groups and activists that have turned the streets of Seattle into a mix of protests, political muscle-flexing and violence. The WTO is portrayed by its supporters as protector of the poor and bulwark of global prosperity, and by its foes as an unaccountable, secretive...