Princess (2006)

Being an anime fan, I’ve always wondered why the rest of the world rarely takes animation films seriously. Seeing the praise for films like Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue (or any of his films, for that matter) and Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies, I find that odd. They show mature, serious subject matter can come across in animated form just as well as live-action. Yeah, sometimes someone gets a clue, like Todd Solondz with his excellent Happiness, but more often than not, the animated film is heavily relegated to children (not to say some of those films aren’t very good as well). So I was happy a couple years ago when I discovered 3 animated films being released that certainly weren’t child’s play.

The first of the trio that I saw, Frank Sudol’s City of Rott, didn’t exactly deliver the goods. The second however, Christian Volckman’s Renaissance, was pretty damn good. The third and final film that was brought to my attention, Anders Morgenthaler’s Princess, which was the film that sounded the most intriguing, had eluded me for some time. I’ve finally gotten the chance the see it and I’m happy to say it pretty much lives up to the expectations I had for it. It’s far from kiddy-fare, and one of the more disturbing animated films I’ve ever come across.

Rating:

---

After his porn-star sister dies from an overdose, August gives up being a missionary priest and returns home to take care of her now-displaced daughter, Mia. He slowly begins to unravel a horror story, one of sexual abuse and exploitation, not just to his sister, but possibly to Mia as well. His anger sends him on a mission of revenge, seeking out the man behind the sex and drugs so his dead sister can rest in peace.

 

The film is quite effective in making you feel the characters plight. Flashbacks, told through a box of old videotapes August filmed of his sister and their life together, are actually live-action. The same actors providing the voices for the animated characters on screen are seen in live-action in these flashbacks, and it really lends some true human emotion to the characters. It’s something I honestly can’t recall seeing before in an animated film, and that’s the kind of creativity in a film I can truly appreciate, especially when it works as well as it does here.

While this technique does in fact work when it comes to making the viewer feel like these characters are actually real, it does the film a bit of a disservice when it comes to the more action-oriented scenes. This is an animated film, so of course there’s some suspension of disbelief, but because of these live-action flashbacks, the film comes off feeling a bit more real than animated films normally do, so when a former missionary that is a normal guy by all accounts takes down multiple dudes in a gun fight and is launching guys through windows, it sort of takes you out of the realism of the film. I definitely understand this is animated, and thus liberties can be taken, but I felt the director was really trying to get the viewer to feel true emotion for the animated characters though those live-action flashbacks, and these over-the-top action scenes felt somewhat out of place in context.

Regardless of that inconsistency, the film does a great job of creating a truly seedy atmosphere of sexual depravity. While you won’t be seeing actual animated sex or anything, you will encounter sleazy producers, drug pushers, sex toys, porn magazines, and pretty much anything else you might imagine lurking in the nasty underbelly of the porn industry. The film does a wonderful job as well of showing how affected a child may become being exposed to such a world. Surely this could not have been done within the realm of live-action, as the censors would have shit a brick. At times while watching this, you may in fact feel just as angry as August does about what has happened to his sister and niece, and that definitely should say something about the quality of the material here.

I can’t exactly recommend this to everyone, as it certainly ISN’T for everyone. However, if you liked Happiness, or even wondered what an animated version of Taxi Driver would be like (and really, who hasn’t!), this should definitely tickle your fancy. Just don’t expect to feel happy and clean afterwards, because you almost certainly won’t.