The incredible scale of universal interest and love for the Princess of Wales seems to have only become fully tangible after her tragic death. Filmmakers of all stripes are still finding new ground for storytelling in Diana’s fate, but each subsequent time it certainly seems to be all. And each time this feeling is deceptive.
We have already seen the birth story of Diana’s romance with Pakistani surgeon Hasnat Khana (“Diana: A Love Story”), we saw her during the divorce decision of Prince Charles (“Spencer”), we watched how it happened. The royal family reacted to Diana’s death (“Queen”), then traced the relationship between Lady Dee and Charles (“The Crown”), step by step. What is there: her death even became a catalyst for the grandiose changes of the heroine of “Amelie”.
The number of actresses playing Lady Dee also seems endless. In one of the 1985 SNL sketches, Madonna was even reincarnated as Diana during the royal family’s historic meeting with then-US President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan. But very soon we are waiting for the premiere of the new season of The Crown, where most of her screen time will be reserved for the princess again only after the divorce. This time on the screen, the image of Diana will be embodied by Elizabeth Debicki, who is considered by many to be the most successful candidate for the role.
However, under various optics, the place of documentaries seems empty in this entire fictional biography series. There are so many historical events associated with Diana that it’s no surprise that director Ed Perkins (Oscar nominee for the documentary Short Black Sheep) tried to collect her in a full-fledged film.
The picture begins with that fateful night the princess died. While walking the evening streets of Paris, several tourist-spectators find themselves near the Ritz Hotel and accidentally capture the moment Diana’s car leaves with their cameras. This foresight is an instant pain to the heart, because we know that Diana will die in a car accident within minutes.
A step forward, reproducing all the main events in the life of the future queen of hearts: how her modest 19-year-old daughter marries a 32-year-old adult Prince Charles, how their first child is born (even in supermarkets it is reported to the British over loudspeaker), how a couple has a second son how they break up, how the truth about their unhappy marriage comes out, how they file for divorce, how does Diana become a symbol of humanism? and a favorite of millions (if not billions) of people. And all this is under the constant, obsessive, tactless, close and painful attention of the press.
It seems we’ve seen most of this chronicle many times: paparazzi occupy him in the car, blocking the street, protecting him from under his fence, attacking him at the airport. But in Perkins’ full-length compilation, this documentary evidence paints a coherent picture, turning Diana’s life almost into an ancient Greek tragedy.
Of course, the choice of subject gives Perkins full authority – making a movie about the Princess of Wales automatically means capturing the audience’s attention. On the other hand, with the plethora of attempts to get Diana’s life on the shelves, each subsequent project must justify its own fact of existence: what new and important does it bring to Lady Di’s biography?
But Perkins doesn’t seem to care about answering that question. Even Diana’s biography is devoted exclusively to the main historical theses from her life, starting with the documentary chronicle. As if only what the camera managed to capture was the main proof of his destiny. The director deliberately does not interview anyone and gives the right to vote for only one person in his film – Diana.
Thanks to this impartial observation and her reluctance to reinterpret existing facts, The Princess seems to be the most convincing document on Lady Dee’s life. “Crown”, “Spencer” and other projects can surprise with excellent acting, script, directing. But all this goes through optics and is only an interpretation, not an objective representation of events.
In this sense, Perkins’ documentary format wins, just like life itself: there are no moralizing final conclusions about the dangers of aggressive media work, and even the emotions of the filmmaker himself are left behind the scenes.
With his narrative of constantly observing the life of the princess for almost two hours, the director draws the audience to a logical conclusion: By observing the most personal, he has seen a lot that is not intended for prying eyes, perhaps it is time. Turn around and leave Diana alone? It’s not the most noticeable result, but it’s (apparently) what Diana had always dreamed of.