The Princess, a new documentary film, is the first re-framing of the Princess Diana story since it was last re-framed, about ten minutes ago, and before it will be re-framed again, probably by Tuesday. We’ve had The Crown recently, and Spencer, and our favourite, Diana: The Musical (‘It’s the Thrilla in Manila but with Diana and Camilla’), and there are several upcoming books, one of which, R is for Revenge Dress, ‘explores the celebrated life of Princess Diana through the alphabet’. To those who say the poor woman should be left to rest in peace, I would say: F is for Fat Chance. But is this the definitive documentary we’ve all been waiting for? Possibly not.
We can see the way she momentarily and worriedly bites her lip. ‘Don’t do it!’, you want to shout
It has superb credentials. It is directed by Ed Perkins, who was Oscar nominated for Black Sheep, and produced by Simon Chinn and Jonathan Chinn (Man on Wire, Searching for Sugarman). However, in telling the story via contemporaneous archive footage, and therefore through the public lens, without a single talking head or interview, it can’t lay any claim to originality as this technique has been deployed before, most notably by Asif Kapadia (Senna, Amy, Diego Maradona). Neither is the historical re-framing insightful. The film merely becomes a time capsule, which is distracting – the parking meters!
Diana, who would now have been 61, is forever frozen at the peak of her powers, like Marilyn Monroe. This is compelling, because we’re all voyeurs at heart, but it doesn’t peel back the layers. It opens at the end, on that fateful night in 1997, with camcorder footage taken by a tourist (I think), who has spotted her car outside the Ritz in Paris.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in