Princess

The BBC series Monkey Dust used animation to portray fairly adult themes. In fact, there were many motifs that seem to come directly from that show, as well as the animation style. I suspect the film has either copied this style directly, or their is a shared artistic connection.

The film covers the porn industry and its fallout. It is put together quite skilfully, but has no consistent mood and ends rather sentimentally. The spine is an almost Kill Bill style revenge plot, around which the sharp edges of the real world intrude. The film has heart but no gravity; it weaves a spell around itself but not the audience. So in the end the whole is considerably less than the sum of its well put together parts.

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!

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 !

This movie is not politically correct ... don't watch it, if you're not down with that. Having said that and seeing that I only gave it 4 stars, one could be excused to say, that I like my movies PC. But that couldn't be further away from the truth, than saying that I like Death Metal (which I don't).

But back to this animated movie, which tackles and tries to punch the porn industry. It's brave in doing so, and it's not shy on getting down and dirty. But that is, where it lost me. Throwing children into the mix is something I despise very much. This is definitely not a movie for children! And there shouldn't be any in it, too (imo).

Provocative or not, it just felt wrong to me. The issues that are named here, are serious, but there surely is a better approach to them than this movie.

Princess was the most anticipated film of the Midnight Madness program this year at TIFF for me after I heard the basic premise of the film and was surprised to learn that a story of that nature would be told in an animated feature. It turned out to be a very hardcore noir revenge tale that was gritty as hell and dealt with some very sensitive material. I wish there was some official website/trailer, or even some images I could find on the net from this movie but I can't seem to much at all. To compare it to other works I guess the movie felt to me like it had certain elements from films like Taxi Driver, Leon: The Professional, and a load of other film noir just set in a more underground modern day euro trash setting.

The story follows a man named August, a priest in the opening of the film, who finally tracks down his pregnant sister, whom he discovers in a very shocking scene engaged with several men in a gang bang. The images of that and the character's reaction, framed in an intense close up of his quivering blue eyes that look like they could crack at any moment, pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Years later, August's sister, who we learn was a renowned porn star named Princess, is found murdered, and her daughter now orphaned. August must now take his sister's daughter Mia under his care, while slowly discovering the deep trauma this child has suffered living under such a degrading, sexually oppressive environment. The connection these two characters form is what's most powerful about this movie, as they both endure the loss of a sister/mother who fell into such a disgusting, dangerous world, and Mia who is probably only about 5-8 years old slowly learns who her mother really was.

What definitely carries the film though is August's transformation from rational, peaceful man and caring figure into an infuriated angel of death to those responsible for killing his sister and continuing to make money from her Adult Video sales and merchandise, exploiting her even in death, while trying to eliminate all the existing pornographic material of his sister. You even begin to see symbolic traces of religious empowerment in August's extreme actions later on in the film. This man reaches such a breaking point that when he finally unleashes the results will leave you speechless. The level of violence in this film is surprising at times, though never becomes too indulgent and over the top, as brutality almost seems quite necessary and appropriate at times given the subject matter and themes of the film. This is a man who enters a world that completely contradicts everything he holds to be morally right and pure, a world that destroyed his only sister, and whom he is somewhat responsible for plunging her into as you'll learn later on in the film. I wish i could rant on more about the animation and direction in it too. Really, the animated medium this story reaches it's audience is so effectively used, every transition and image is so well executed, while the animation is quite simplistic yet very well suited to the gritty places and faces we're introduced to. 20% of the film is actually live action camcorder footage which appears as glimpses into the character's pasts, as August used to record everything on his video camera, though we never actually see him in any of these live action flashbacks. There is so much beauty to this film despite much of it's vile content; the settings, depth of character & expression, atmosphere, colors and soundtrack all create such a wonderfully hypnotic visual experience and a film that I eagerly await to see again. I doubt it'll ever get much of a theatrical release given the level of violence and sexuality in it, especially when dealing with a small child, but lets hope there'll be more buzz around Princess in the future.