Princesas

Fernando León De Aranoa's film Princesas, is a touching and emotional journey about two young women who work the streets of Madrid, out of pure desperation. They are in hopes of starting a new life. It isn't the typical Hollywood prostitute movie; it is much more than that. It is a very agonizing movie that puts you in these intense characters shoes, and you try to understand how they deal with their day to day struggles. Aranoa gives perspective and creates this underlying sympathy that continuously tugs at your heart strings.

I felt for Caye the minute the movie started and she was walking into that hospital room to show the young boy a good time. How humiliating I thought to myself, but she had no choice. Again you feel for her when you realize that she is living a double life. She tries to enjoy a quite lunch with her family but her phone is constantly antagonizing and bringing her back to her reality, which for me seems like a living hell. I have seen movies before about prostitutes like "Pretty Woman," a typical American Hollywood film. It is sad and then it has a typical happy ending. Princesas is raw and real, it doesn't turn Caye and Zulema's lives into a fairy tale. It is refreshing to see an original and genuine film about an issue that is prevalent in the world today. There are women all over the world that have no other choice. I feel like Aranoa's film is giving these women a voice. Prostitutes are people, and they do what they can to survive.

When I saw Los Lunes al Sol, another Spanish film from the same Director, I could almost feel what it was like to be an unemployed man in our society. I thought Princesas would be at least a bit realistic regarding the life of a prostitute. I was wrong. The film is cute, has some rhythmic music, the two main characters are likable, etc. but the story is way too light. The film touches from far away certain issues like exploitation, venereal diseases, racism, etc. but it NEVER gets into reality. The general feeling is like being a prostitute is more fun that any other thing... just a step below "Pretty Woman". Princesas is definitely just a commercial film and (besides some acting)has nothing to be considered high quality.

Caye is saving up for a boob job. She gets her money as Lima, whoring in the streets of Madrid. Every week she eats dinner with her family and worries abut her mother's increasingly slippery grip on reality. And she has theories on Princesses and their attachment to nostalgia. Caye has no past to be nostalgic for, so she is sad for her lost future. She meets illegal immigrant and fellow prostitute Zulema, and the friendship brings her some respite. But nothing good lasts forever...

Princesas is a poetic work, shot cinema verite style showing in uncompromising detail the degradation and danger that accompanies these women's lives. Candela Peña is engrossing as Caye, with no past to comfort her, and unable to see a better future, stuck in an eternal present. Her only hope is that there is not another life like this one. Zulema, the stunningly beautiful Micaela Nevárez, is compromised by a government bureaucrat lowlife who dangles just enough hope in front of her to facilitate his need to abuse. This relationship must be the only time in cinema history where a character looking for revenge packs a knife in her bag, and the audience never sees it again. Zulema, however, at least has a Pyrrhic victory of sorts (though the film falters slightly here, as it is unclear exactly who is infecting whom...)

A snapshot of lives lived in shadows and on the edges of our civilization, this is lyrically written, and shot in an unobtrusive, straightforward manner. Touching, truthful and ample food for thought.

"Princesas" is one of them. After seeing Fernando León de Aranoa's wonderful film "Los Lunes al Sol" (qv), I was hungry for more. I am a great lover of cinema which has either been taken from live theatre or which delve into the realness of the human condition, of human feelings, which explore the depths of what makes people tick, of what makes people think, feel, love, hate, of what makes people on celluloid be real live living people with character and personality and deep feelings. In this aspect "Princesas" is a beautiful, moving, thoughtful piece which deserves great accolade. I left the cinema with very very deep feelings running through my heart and mind, such that I missed the bus-stop, and in the end walked all the way home - about three kilometres!

Without any doubt, the young Spanish directors Amenábar and León de Aranoa are now well above the more famous Almodóvar. "Princesas" is about prostitutes. Well, forget that: it is about two beautiful people who find themselves working the streets - and the mobile (cell) phone - to get clients. But it is also about friendship, love between two women who have had to drop out into the seamier world of the big cities - in this case, Madrid.

León de Aranoa treats the subject matter with such poignant delicacy, with such understanding sensitivity, with such superb and tasteful exquisiteness, that towards the end of the film more than one little tear dropped from my eyes. And that does not often happen.

Candela Peña, (Todo sobre mi madre, qv) (Te doy mis ojos, qv), and Micaela Nevárez in her first film, offer us superb readings of their characters; both are superb; both won my heart. The chemistry between these two young women - Spanish and Dominican - was so magnificent, you would swear they had lived all their lives together. They had me feeling for them, for their situation, for their loves, and desires, and hopes, and Zulema wanting to get back to her child in the Dominican Republic.

The music by Manu Chao and Gato Pérez was at times a little over strident, but befitting the telling of the story. (There are also other pieces of music not yet mentioned in IMDb).

Ramiro Civita's photography, especially in the facial close-ups is astounding, bringing out the best of the actresses feelings, anguish, torments. Superb work, though some scenes with hand-held camera were at times chaotic. Nevertheless, I pass over this.

The same as in "Te doy Mis Ojos"(qv) we have here an important sociological document in the form of a film with a story to tell. Women find themselves in bad situations directly due to men's vain and stupid attempts at being superior over them. Men fail miserably; as I have said in "Te doy mis ojos": this film makes me feel ashamed of being a man. So does "Princesas". A beautiful, warm, tender, hard story, so wonderfully told.

I shall see this film again before it is taken off from the local multi -cinemas, and will buy the DVD as soon as it is in the shops.

Here is another film to add to the best six Spanish films of all times:

El Sur

Los Santos Inocentes

Mar Adentro

Princesas

Te doy Mis Ojos

A los que Aman (all commented on in IMDb)

Micaela Nevárez is a Puerto Rican actress who has achieved great fame in independent and European films. She made her film debut in the acclaimed Spanish film Princesas which was directed by Fernando León de Aranoa, in which she played Zulema, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic trying to make a living as a prostitute on the streets of Madrid, Spain. Her strong convincing performance in this film earned her a Goya Award for Best New Actress in 2006, making her the first Puerto Rican thespian to win this prestigious award.By winning this award, Nevárez became the first Puerto Rican performer to win this prestigious film honor and one of the few Latin American actresses to do so as well. She is preparing to launch her film career in the United States in 2008 with a supporting role in the independent film The War Boys starring Victor Rasuk and Peter Gallagher.