PRINCESS
Denmark, 2006, 82 minutes, Colour.
Voices of: Thure Lindhardt, Stina Fischer Christenson, Tommy Kenter, Mira Hallund.
Directed by Anders Morgenthaler.
Princess sounds a pretty name for an animation film. However, this film is far from pretty. Princess is the name given to a young woman as she becomes a porn actress, named by an unscrupulous producer and his associates. Her brother, a priest, who had photographed her earlier on video (and is partly blamed by the producer for introducing her to this world), returns from a missionary experience, finds his sister dead, takes charge of her five-year-old daughter, and then goes on a spree, avenging her career and her death. The director has declared himself anti the pornification of our contemporary world.
The director has made a great deal of children’s television but also does a satirical newspaper strip. This time, he has made an angry film, in the vein, as critics noted, of Taxi Driver.
The style of the film seems very flat in its drawing. The grim world of a housing estate as well as the pornography world are not glamorised in any way. However, once the violence starts, the film is very vivid, especially in its splashes of colour.
The film is morally ambiguous – especially in asking the audience to identify with the priest and his mission of vengeance. The film is further complicated morally by the presentation of the young girl. She has been deprived of childhood, is in many ways far too worldly-wise, especially in the sexual areas, and she is complicit in a brutal murder. The film is pessimistic in its ending – although, there is an epilogue where there is alive action of the cast who provided the voices, seeming to be in some kind of paradise – after their hell on Earth.
Princess is an interesting experiment in animation style. It is also a challenge to some of the pervasive values of a world that indulges in pornography and violence.
1.The impact of the film? Brutality? Pornography? Vengeance? The moral tone?
2.The style of animation, basic, characters, settings? Voices? The musical score?
3.The title, expectations, the irony of it being Christina’s name in the pornography movies? The title of the films?
4.The credibility of the plot, as live action, as animation? The live action sequences – the characters, the video, the posters for the film?
5.The live action in the finale, the three characters, seen as real after seeing the animated action?
6.The focus on Christine, her friends, August taking the videos, leading to her role as a porn actress, her career, drugs, the sex scene at the beginning, her pregnancy, giving birth to Mia? Her death because of drug abuse? The video of her viciousness towards her daughter? August trying to explain it away?
7.August, seen as a priest, how significant? The videos of his sister? The pornographers blaming him? His missionary work? The return? Finding Mia? Going to the brothel, the encounter with the madam? The information about the pornographers, tracking them down, his violence towards them, the killings? The build-up to the climax, the bomb in Mia’s toy? His love for Mia, trying to protect her, her moodiness, her attitude towards her mother, watching the videos, his slapping her, apologising? Her going to Charlie’s house? With her toy? The bomb, her coming out again? Wanting to stay with August? Going back in, her death? His death?
8.Mia, her mother, her hard life, her language? Watching the video? Too knowing? Her being with August, his love for her, building up her confidence? Her love for her toy? The toy and its becoming animated, smiling, grimacing? Her wanting to go to Charlie’s place, having the address from the madam, August taking her, trying to get over the barbed-wire fence? Her getting into the house, meeting the women, leaving the toy, going back, her death?
9.The pornographers, the way that they were drawn, repellent? Exploitative? Making money, callous? The violence of their deaths, the simple drawings, the splashes of red?
10.The overall impact of the film? The director and his attitude towards pornography, that audiences should not be indifferent to this phenomenon, the exploitation, the effect on the actors? Drugs? The film as a moral fable – even with its philosophy of vengeance?
