Princess Diana HBO Documentary ‘The Princess’ Review
HBO releases on Saturday a new documentary called The Princess, which is focused on the public life of Princess Diana, from her early days engaged to Prince Charles to her untimely death.
Ed Perkins directs the film, which made its worldwide debut at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and that tells the story of Diana’s public life merely through archival footage. The conventional route of interviews with relevant witnesses to the events or experts in the field is not followed here, and instead, Perkins went back to old footage and newscasts to try to get as much information on the public perception of Princess Diana was at the time.
This way, Perkins and his team tried to be as unbiased as possible on any debate surrounding the Princess by focusing the documentary on Diana vs. the press, instead of the Royal Family’s point of view. The Royal Family, and especially Prince Charles, play an important role in the documentary, of course, but they are side players, supporting characters even, while the media take the co-lead role in the doc. It’s a vastly distinct approach to Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, though both films could complement each other very well — that is, of course, if you enjoyed the Kristen Stewart-led movie. I myself was not a fan of it, so I can gladly say that The Princess is a much better film than that.
However, focusing the story the documentary is telling so much on how the press harassed Diana for years breaks the fourth wall at times (at least, as much as it can be broken in a documentary), as the movie itself is now contributing to the conversation surrounding the Princess. The discourse around her public figure was not always the most favorable, to be nice about it, but the documentary argues that it is more the fact that she was constantly in the news cycle rather than what the news cycle said about her, what damaged the Princess’ mental health and ultimately caused her to leave the Royal Family. Yet putting out another piece of media about Diana, even if it is just in protest of what has come before, is ultimately contributing to the conversation.
It is definitely a thin line that I think the filmmakers tried not to cross, as I believe their intention was to remember her and also criticize us as humans for ruining someone’s life with our ceaseless intrusiveness. There are dozens of minutes in this 105-minute documentary capturing Princess Diana being followed around by a big cloud of photographers, rubbing their lenses just a few inches away from her face. A specific photo that was printed in a newspaper is said to have cost £250,000.
Overall, I would recommend the film, as I do believe that it adds some value to the conversation, even by almost being part of the problem. It runs for 105 minutes, but save for the last 20 minutes, which capture Diana’s tragic passing and funeral in excruciating detail, it goes by really fast and I did not find myself checking how much was left, a rare thing to say in such a competitive landscape for streaming content. The Princess will run as nice counter programming as we head into the busiest time of the year on television, with new entries from the Marvel Universe, Middle-earth, Westeros and a galaxy far, far away coming in the next few weeks. If you are looking to escape from any of those fantasy lands and want some real-world filmmaking, well, I would recommend Navalny. But if you’ve already watched Navalny, well, this will do just fine.
The Princess will be released on Saturday, August 13, on HBO, from 8:00-9:50 p.m. ET/PT. This month is also the 25th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
