Princess Diana Documentary Screens at Sundance, and the Reviews Are In
A Life Cut Short
"The use of nothing but archival footage to recount Diana's rise, her perpetual 'trial by television' and her fall isn't a gimmick – it's a stroke of genius, a jujitsu finishing move on her tormentors," wrote Rolling Stone. The outlet also called The Princess "the definitive Princess Diana documentary."
prevnextTHE PRINCESS: New doc about PRINCESS DIANA doesn’t tell me anything new, but by using archival footage with no narration or new interviews, director ED PERKINS lets the viewer draw their own conclusions about the parts the Monarchy & the media played in her death. #Sundance2022 pic.twitter.com/E69wHIDBWz
— Sundance Mantz (@MovieMantz) January 21, 2022
Media Frenzy
"This is a carefully arranged narrative that doesn't just chart the story of Diana's fame but becomes the story of a woman whose private life became public property," Deadline heralded The Princess. This was a very intentional choice on the part of the director, Ed Perkins.
"I wanted to aim at something more immersive and unmediated, constructed solely from contemporaneous archive from the time — the very imagery that people 'knew' Diana through. No interviews. No hindsight reflection. My hope was that in doing so we might get to something more profound, with greater emotional clarity and honesty about those events and the strange power they had, and still have, on so many people," Perkins said in a statement. "I also wanted to revisit the national dialogue and debate around Diana at the time — something I think we have all too easily forgotten. Diana herself was a complex and paradoxical figure. It was, in my opinion, one of the things people found so fascinating and magnetic about her."
prevnext#Sundance2022 Movie #1 – THE PRINCESS: A documentary about Princess Di told completely through archive/news footage. It's well-worn territory but fascinating to see how the media viewed Diana in real time and how an increasingly predatory atmosphere of hysteria led to her death. pic.twitter.com/nSET9RqxCT
— Dan Murrell @ Sundance (@MurrellDan) January 21, 2022
Human Emotion
"I just got to watch the film The Princess (via Sundance online) tonight and it was incredible," tweeted critic Cassie Peters. "It's a documentary about Princess Diana using only press footage and no commentary. The human emotion they captured was outstanding. Highly recommend."
prevnextthe princess (2022)
— anna @ sundance (@itsaimmedia) January 23, 2022
dir. ed perkins pic.twitter.com/fRZTwsiS8C
An Unflinching Look
"Another Princess Diana project??? you may wonder, but Ed Perkins' remarkable Sundance doc THE PRINCESS — no talking heads, no timelines, no charts — is a wonder," tweeted IndieWire writer Kate Erbland. "It made me feel horrible, and I think that's the point."
prevnextTHE PRINCESS uses actual footage to show how the media attention deeply affected Princess Diana. She fought two battles; the one within the castle and the media. It’s a fairly generic doc but it captured the peoples Princess as authentically as possible. #Sundance
— manda 💫 (@amxndareviews) January 21, 2022
A Time Capsule
"THE PRINCESS: Ed Perkins takes a unique approach to telling Princess Diana's story that critiques everything from media to constructions of gender," tweeted critic Kristen Lopez. "Less a documentary and more a time capsule of a society. Dense and fascinating."
THE PRINCESS: I'm not a big follower of the royal family or Princess Diana, but this is a very good doc about the People's Princess. The use of archival footage to tell Diana's story is so well done that I was eating it up. No talking heads or narration was necessary. #Sundance pic.twitter.com/zbYCQWFrDK
— Ian Bulaclac (@Ian_Boolocklock) January 23, 2022
prevnextTHE PRINCESS: Archival doc about Princess Di is well-made, and reminds us how awful the paparazzi was towards her. But it doesn't offer anything new. https://t.co/zLBfzCfB2U
— Chris Evangelista (@cevangelista413) January 21, 2022
Some Negative Reviews
Not everyone was a fan of The Princess, however. "A flawed little time capsule, the doc veers uneasily between kindly character portrait and shallow attempt at media studies," wrote The Hollywood Reporter. "There's nothing new here, nothing original, and no fresh perspective," wrote The Times.
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