Stéphanie Di Giusto presents characters on screen that break all conventions. Your film Rosalie is an appeal to have the courage to stand up for yourself.
No fear of touch: Clothilde (Juliette Armanet) and Rosalie (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) Photo: X-Verleih
Rosalie (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) wants a child because she wants to be loved unconditionally. She expresses her desire with some emphasis early in the film. Nevertheless, it is easy to dismiss at first, as it is probably the most common thing for young women and probably the only thing she has in common with the common expectations and times of late 19th century women.
Rosalie is indeed a radical challenge to the social conventions of her time, and would undoubtedly still cause exciting contradictions today. But not through her particular views or her extravagant lifestyle, but through her biological makeup, her sheer being: Rosalie suffers from a hormonal disorder since birth, which causes excessive hair growth on both her body and face.
Recognizing the provocation that this departure from the ordinary entails, she shaves daily and regularly powders her beard to keep it from growing.
great excitement
On the morning when the French period drama begins, Rosalie makes a special effort because her widowed father (Gustave Kervern) wants to marry her. She is especially excited because no one knows the man who runs the café in their small northern town.
“Rosalie.” Directed by: Stephanie Di Giusto. Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Benoît Magimel et al. France/Belgium 2023, 116 min.
But Abel (Benoit Magimel), who actually wanted to marry for the dowry, is incredibly happy when he sees his future bride. The young woman sitting in front of him is very attractive, and her embarrassed look is something he finds really attractive, simply a proper feminine restraint. He does not trust Rosalie much in the matter, so he asks her what she has to hide, and is relieved when she expresses her desire to have children.
Once again, he misinterprets the sign and is not surprised that she so desperately wants “unconditional love”, and he is not surprised that she thinks she can only find deep affection this way. He probably confuses that desire with a woman’s longing to be a mother.
hairy woman’s chest
On the night of her wedding, his anger at seeing a woman’s hairy chest is even greater. It would be easy to make Rosalie a tragic heroine herself. Given that her dangerous otherness is something she cannot ultimately escape, this would be the most natural course for Stefani Di Giusto, who directed and wrote the film, to take in her second feature film.
But the subdued direction avoids such fatalism, and so does the well-conceived script, which instead combines touching relationship drama with encouraging, never naïve character study. Rosalie, somewhat influenced by Clémentine Delait’s fate, knows how to assert herself in the face of adversity.
She makes a bet with one of her husband’s few cafe visitors: if she can grow a magnificent beard in a month, her husband will owe her a significant amount of money. She wins, becomes a sensation, and the small restaurant suddenly becomes so rich that Abel is able to pay off all his debts to the town’s influential patron (Benjamin Biolay).
No need to hide anymore
At least at first, her husband seems to be the only one who is not fascinated by the beauty of the deviation. The enthusiasm she receives from the rural people seems overwhelming, and the sense of liberation Rosalie experiences when she suddenly no longer has to hide is almost intoxicating.
But the film’s problems and the actual plot are only just beginning. With psychological precision and a consistently excellent cast, Stéphanie Di Giusto addresses when common pleasure turns to hostility again, and in the process makes keen observations about the desires of the present. Sometimes he doesn’t like to adhere to narrow moral dogmas.
Because of shame or anxiety about the dissonance between attractiveness and charm. According to what was claimed Dignity demands that those who are most impressed by Rosalie’s enchanting joy of life and dazzling elegance become her most irreconcilable opponents.
The fact that Rosalie continues to defend herself is related to the prospect that she will still experience acceptance of her own personhood, even if it is through the love of a child for her mother. Without falling into pathos or clichés, Di Giusto also speaks of the immense value of hope, which, because of its loyalty to itself, becomes more vital to survival. Perhaps, as Rosalie suggests at the end, this is the only context in which something like “unconditionality” really matters.
