Directed by: Pablo Larrain
Written by: Steve Knight
Starring: Kristen Stewart
Premiered at Venice Film Festival.
The film is about Princess Diana, ending her marriage to Prince Charles and leaving the British royal family. The film has a beautiful tone to it, it's a blend of a periodic epic drama and a Aronofsky style psychological thriller. It's about her angst, of not being able to fit in the royal family, and also her dealing with Prince Charles having an affair. The best part about the film is that it's very visual. There is are a few terrific scenes which are the core of the film, one is at the dining table, where she breaks her string of pearls and then gobbles them into her mouth, and later vomits it. Kristen Stewart was terrific in the part, they added a layer of paranoia to her body language, and it's expressionist. The music is also expressionist in those scenes where the cameras are flashing at her face.
And then there's a scene where she plucks flesh from her own arm. Self harm is something very dark and interesting to explore. It happens when you feel that there's nothing in your control, except your own body. Just to tell yourself that you can control some things, you end up hurting yourself to prove yourself a point that you are in control of at least something. That's the headspace, Diana is in. Her every move is controlled, there's security all over, she feels claustrophobic, and that's the reason the film is shot in that aspect ratio too. They could've easily chose to go to a cinescope or an even wider aspect ratio to capture the beautiful sets, but since this is a story of suffocation, and not about the grandiosity of the royal family - they shot it like this. In spite of that, the frames have a very interesting nature to them, it feels a bit poetic at times, but because of the score, the poetic landscapes suddenly get a tinge of paranoia to them.
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