Princesse

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.

I knew nothing about this going in and it's not easy to tell what's going on for a good while. The plot reveals itself in a different way than most movies do and until there's a general idea of what's happening, the movie seems like an adult swim knock-off wannabe.

However, once everything is set into place, it's very gripping and stays with you until the end with a great story plus wonderful character depth and development.

The film is part animation and part grainy digital video. The digital video is used to represent a character who is no longer alive shown through home movies at random insertions. The home movies style kinda detracts from the story but it's not all bad, there's an interesting scene where a car crash from the outside is animated and from inside is shown with the grainy video.

Although, for the most part there's animation which is spectacular. I'm not sure if it's a company located outside of the country the film comes from but it's not in the exaggerated anime style. That means the animation is there but you're able to actually focus on the story. The style of animation also makes the violence pretty graphic. Understand that this is an R rated movie for a reason and some parts even in animation are tough to take in.

With proper distribution, this could become a midnight movie cult classic.

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.

This is great anime for adults. The story moves you, affects you, so that you will remember it. It is like the hardcore Japanese manga anime stuff with over the top violence and gore, but also with lots of implied sick, twisted, disturbing things. It is truly cruel to watch. A lot of other things I watch are considered sick and disturbed but they never affected me. Princess did...

Sometimes real live film appears in the film, mainly when the characters watch TV. Maybe that is to make viewers more involved in the characters? But I feel the anime characters are more engaging. I do not think the movie gained anything by doing this. Especially the last 1 minute or so of live stuff should have been deleted.

The animations/drawings were great. Especially the lighting. The perspective in the lines were considerably unnatural, which was annoying for me. The characters were portrayed really well. The story was incredibly tragic and great.

I give it a 9 out of 10 if I pretend the last minute is gone.

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 !