Having watched the Dardenne Brother's Rosetta and "Dans l’obscurité”, the most evident of parallels is the way the camera is handled--steadicam , and long bouts of real time footage, allowing anything to come into the way of the camera while trying to shoot the main subject. In the case of the short film, the red movie seats got in the way about every couple of inches of the shot. This allows the viewer to feel as if they are there and not necessarily interrupting, but a real audience to what is happening.
Another signature Dardenne feature was the sound in this short. There's no dramatic music, just the sound that is surrounding the subject. There are no special parts where certain sounds fade, this is just essentially the most real the shot can get.
Much less technical and more in depth to the story, the short and the film both showcase issues of the lengths people are willing to go get by in their social classes. This short had a very tragic underlining to it, but with these, come a lot of heart. The theme parallels between "Dans L'obscurite" and Rosetta are simple: people having a really hard time doing what they need to do to get by in life, even if it means going as far as taking advantage of other people who are actually really well-intentioned; therein lies the ironic beauty. These are situations that people are put in. Society and their class has led these people to believe that they have no one to rely on when really there are many people in the world who want to help them.
