The Princess

Greetings again from the darkness. It's been 25 years since the paparazzi chased the car into that Paris tunnel. The ensuing accident took the lives of Princess Diana, her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul. The tragic and stunning event led to global grieving for a Princess who many felt never was accepted as a member of the Royal Family. Director Ed Perkins (BLACK SHEET, 2018) uses only archival footage, stills, and news clips to show how the media covered Diana over what was less than two decades in the spotlight. No new interviews - the talking heads we are accustomed to in documentaries - are included here, only the editing of existing media materials are offered as storytelling devices.

The film opens with a tourist-shot video taken just moments before the fatal accident. What stands out is the crush of photographers, the squealing tires takeoff of Diana's car, and the swift action of paparazzi following on scooters and cycles. It's not until the end of the film that we see the footage of the wreckage being towed from the tunnel. The rest of the film tracks Diana over the years ... less than 20 years total.

The flashback takes us to Diana Spencer as a 19-year-old girlfriend of Prince Charles. As the press hound her on the walk to her car, we note her coy and shy demeanor as she offers "no comment" before driving herself away. The strain on her face as she's being questioned is evident, and remains through those early shared interviews with Charles. It's not until years later when she becomes so adept at handling the media frenzy.

Throughout the film we see clips of Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth, Sarah Ferguson, and Diana's interactions with such notables as Henry Kissinger, Mother Teresa, John Travolta, Luciano Pavarotti, and Nelson Mandela. We watch as Diana's hairstyles make their way around the globe, and of course, the wedding segment recalls how it became 'the' television event of 1981. There are segments on two babies (William and Harry), and we even see Diana holding Harry in her lap as the car drives away ... and Charles heads to his polo match.

The 12-year age gap is discussed, but Diana's surprising BBC interview with Martin Bashear provided the more likely reason for the 1992 separation. Camilla Parker-Bowles is shown while still married, but a Charles interview (along with Diana's BBC interview) make it clear that the Diana marriage was meant to deliver 'pure' bloodlines to the Royal Family, and the "Fred and Gladys" (Charles and Camilla) relationship couldn't do that. We can't help but notice how much sadness Diana carried, and she certainly had her own detractors and critics, especially when biographers noted her own affair. It was this era that turned the Royals into their own entertainment industry - something which is disturbingly even more true today. Diana died at only 36 years of age. Both of her sons are older than that now. The global grief experienced is on full display during the segments highlighting her funeral. Perkins' film might be a bit difficult for anyone who wasn't around during the Diana era, but for those of us who were, the memories have not faded, and are enhanced by what we see here.

Available on HBO and HBO Max beginning August 13, 2022.

This documentary tells, at a pace, the story of Princess Diana through media coverage.

Many phases of Diana's relationship with the media, eg the Bashir interview, are worth a documentary in their own right.

The commentary is unspoken through the editing and music score. It doesn't tell those who lived through the 80s and 90s anything new and it certainly won't be last work on Diana's life.

There has been a lot of work selecting a vast range of archive footage, primarily from the UK and the US, with many hitherto unseen finds.

Most, if not all, of the original source material was shot in 4:3. I question the decision to crop and zoom all of this for widescreen, with a consequent degradation in picture quality. It would have been better to have preserved the original 4:3 aspect ratio.

On the Bashir interview, these are the only clips credited to the source on screen during the documentary. I understand this is because the BBC didn't give clearance for their use (the BBC has actually banned it from being licensed or repeated) and the documentary makers are claiming fair dealing on its use.

I watched this only because of the recent death of the queen of England. I was very young when princess Diana cam into the spotlight and all I could remember of her and an adolescent and young adult was her philanthropy and kindness. To me that says it all. I don't believe in the monarchy one bit. I do believe in respecting individuals that leave a positive mark in the world and that is what the princess did. There is no dispute in that. This documentary left me with like the title of my review says my jaw dropped in many instances. Many times I thought to myself of how "cringy" to use a modern term the kids use these days so many things that were done , said and thought of this person for no other reason than for being. Of course no one is perfect and princess Diana certainly was not but she definitely did not deserve a lot of the negative things that were done to her by that family. This documentary showed a lot of that in such a different and interesting way. Very well done in my opinion.

This masterfully crafted documentary takes the viewer along the entire arc of the Charles-and-Diana saga. It is edited entirely from contemporaneous archival footage, some well known, some perhaps never seen since. Because the only voices are those of the principals or of the commentators of the era, there is no supercilious voice-over, which often amounts to little more than self-important distraction. You don't need to know all the details to follow along. The result conveys an immediacy that belies the decades since the events. One of the cringiest moments is the excerpt from the BBC interview with now discredited newscaster Martin Bashir, now that we know the lies and forgeries he used fraudulently to secure that interview. Additionally, in my opinion, Charles comes across very poorly: in his own words, he reveals himself as cold, callous, insecure, and none too bright. Finally, the ruthlessness of paparazzi is well in evidence. That said, there is no overly emotional angle in favor of, or against, Diana or any other subject, leaving viewers to make up their own minds. A brilliant documentary.

I love documentaries more when they include archival materials such as videos and documents. This documentary is full of videos from the early 1980s to 1997 covering the time Diana passed from Prince Charles's girlfriend to her death. However, the film does not offer a timeline, a context, or an interview that helps situate the viewer in the images they are watching. For those who lived through those times, it is not challenging to situate themselves in the time situations shown in the archive videos happen. But anyone who did not live during those years can feel lost in the film. It feels like the people behind the film had to access all that video material and focus mainly on the editing part forgetting about the viewers. It could be done much better.