The opening night films at the online Sundance film festival included a “immersive” Princess Diana documentary that offered a “origin tale” for the British royal family’s recent difficulties.
The Omicron form of Covid-19’s ascent across the United States led Sundance, which promotes independent film, to go virtual for the second year in a row.
Filmmakers have been compelled to innovate as a result of the pandemic, and “The Princess” is one of several Sundance films made solely from archive material.
It transports viewers back to Diana’s difficult marriage to Prince Charles without the use of a narrator, and investigates the impact of a fascinated media and public on those events through contemporary footage.
Rather than attempting to “get into Diana’s thinking,” Perkins focuses on how the press and public viewed and appraised her actions.
A crude footage of tired photographers with long lenses crouching in bushes, moaning among themselves about Diana’s wariness, sits amid well-known awkward interviews made by the pair to major stations.
Diana’s death is captured on home camera by a group of friends watching live TV news bulletins, whose initial delight and light-heartedness quickly turns to horror as the gravity of the Paris automobile disaster becomes obvious.
