Princess (2006)

You won't be disappointed!

Too much of everything

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

When 'Waltz with Bashir' almost got the Oscar prize for best foreign-language movie this year I did not know that it has a precursor in using animation to pass a very serious message. 'Princess' reminds from many points of view the Israeli movie, and even has some very similar looks. In a mix of animation and amateur movies filmed with hand-held camera it tells a story that would be too disturbing to be made with actors. A five year girl is orphaned by the death by overdose of her mother, a porn actress. Her uncle takes her under his protection, only to find out that she was abused by her mother's entourage. They engage in a violent voyage of revenge that ends in tragedy.The combination of animation - the cinema genre associated with the wonderful innocent world of childhood faeries - and documentary footage gives style to this otherwise disturbing story of a traumatic childhood and of violent revenge. Although the film is a little bit too simple in its approach and some of its details it leaves a strong impression exactly because of its apparent minimalism. It's like 'Kill Bill' meeting Disney on the very shaky and dangerous ground of a tragica story of revenge for a stolen childhood.

It has all the elements of modern visual culture - P.O.V. camera, smart usage of CGI and strong hit-in the face animated story-telling. And it has soul. The thing that most nowadays production compromisingly neglects due to better box office income. I honestly cannot seriously accept comments that animation in Princess is lame! It can be put out only by someone who is just brainwashed with console games and CGI hyperproduction blockbusters. This is hell of a strong movie and much more. It just begins at the end. Unfortunately, nowadays it's so rare to take something inside yourself from cinema, besides full belly of popcorn mixed with Coca-cola after two hour bombardment of easy to forget moving pictures. This one is animated feature but not a fairytale of king, castle and prehistorik squirrel but real, present life from everyone's neighbourhood we would rather not to happen. Can't wait to see Echo with Pusher's favourite Kim Bodnia. Keep it on Anders.

It was a bit of a surprise to discover that the majority of the film consists of animated sequences, with just a bit of grainy video footage (the preview I'd read suggested otherwise) ... but after recovering from that shock, I found the film somehow lacking - whilst watching it, I suspended my disbelief, and was quite take by the characters and winced at the violence. But looking back, it all just seems a bit unreal - whereas thinking back to violent non-animated films, I recall them as violent ... this I just recall as being animated !At the London Film Festival screening, the director was on stage afterwards for an interesting Q&A - where he defended the slow pace of the film, by insisting that he would have liked to make it faster, but the 1.5m dollar budget didn't allow. He also revealed that part of his inspiration for making the film was the work of Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, whose photos he initially found erotic ... but eventually he considered the women behind the photos, and how they must all be daughters and sisters (an issue he repeatedly brought up). Anders insisted that in Denmark, whilst pornography is openly available, the women involved are regarded as being a sort of underclass - and his film was partly an attempt to expose this hypocrisy. He admitted that they had considered different endings, but the one he chose was the only one that seemed to work !

As the film festival winds down and all the big stars leave the city, the reality of returning back to the normal life begins to sink in. But it's not totally over yet. There is still one more day left, tomorrow I get to watch Sheitan, which hopefully isn't Sheity as the title somehow suggests. Tonight, I saw Princess, which was everything but sheity.Princess is a Denmark / German import that is comprised of 80% animation and 20% live action. The director, Anders Morgenthaler, puts together a picture that is definitely not something you see in theatres around here. There are a number of facets that make Morgenthaler's Princess stand up tall from the crowd (cliché #1). Firstly, the subject matter; the movie is about a priest who effectively quits his job and coherently scraps his religious beliefs when he allows his life to be rattled by rage and driven by violence. Secondly, the impetus behind the forthcoming violence has never been seen before. The priest (August) (Yes his name is also the name of the popular summer month) returns back to his hometown after hearing of his sister's death. What he learns from here only sickens his soul to the point of blinding his judgment of appropriate justice. He learns that his sister (Christina) (aka Princess) (her porn queen pseudonym) has died an unnecessary death due to the misogyny of Charlie, the president of Lust Paradise, the porno studio Christina worked for. Ironically, August the priest, reacts to this loss, not with sorrow and harmless grief, but with intense and violent vengeance.The third facet then is the path of destruction that August sets forth on -- towards his ultimate goal of murdering Charlie. This is not your typical Pixar movie which keeps kid audiences giggling and upbeat, but rather a much more subdued, dark movie that consistently permeates a tone that makes you feel sorry and more sorry for the characters on screen. Not mentioned yet, but absolutely crucial to the cohesiveness of the story is Mia, Christina's under-loved, abused and emotionally scarred daughter. After Christina's death, she is taken under August's wings. August solemnly tells Christina that he will take care of her and never let her go. It is through August's acquaintance with his alienated niece, that he finds the straw that breaks his camel's back (Grrrreat cliché #2). He learns that August was assaulted by Charlie and later discovers he even sexually molested Mia. The child has seen the world through the wrong glasses and this irritates August up and through to the existential plane of frustration. He believes Mia does not deserve to live in this kind of reality, and she doesn't need a matriarchal role model who has sex for a living. In a disturbing and emotionally awkward scene, Mia joins some children in the courtyard of August's apartment for a game of doctor. Since the roles of the doctor, nurse and patient were already taken - Mia feels obligated to succumb to the only role she knows; a whore. After announcing this, the children react apprehensively, but curiously play along. In the next cut, the nurse has left, leaving the doctor and the patient or the two boys with Mia, the whore. From a low angle, we see Mia almost teasing the boys with her skirt as she slowly lifts it up and over her crotch. Awed by this novel experience the boys dumbfoundedly ask what to do. From witnessing her mother on home movies, Mia naturally and naively tells one of the boys to get on top of her. At this point, the situation gets tense when one of the boys picks up a twig and connotatively suggests another fashion of entry. Mia still has some ounce of moral judgment to realize this is wrong and resists, but the boys push forward until --- oops, you'll have to watch the movie, because I'm getting drowsy!It is powerful scenes like this which poignantly drive the audience through a series of long thoughtful gazes to satisfying sentiments of fitting vengeance and brutalization (it's not healthy to repress anything, including our inner most prehistoric instincts!). Princess shines in a genre of it's own which resists calling itself: an action movie, a drama, a dark comedy, a cartoon, a live-action movie or an unsheity movie because Princess does not holistically fit into any one of these groups, because it belongs in all of them. Kudos to Denmark for releasing such an unbarred film that liberates viewers with a penchant for cerebral activity to think beyond convention!