Princess
Venice Film Festival #1 - Sala Darsena
Still in shock that I’m actually writing a review from Venice Film Festival but here we go. Princess tells the story of a young Nigerian woman, the titular Princess, who is a sex worker in Italy. Donning a number of colourful wigs, men go into the woods seeking her, or one of her friends, in the hopes of getting sex. The film attempts to explore themes surrounding this line of work but never really actualises any of them to the point of making a strong impression. The ending of the film just accentuates this fact as it seems to just aimlessly trail off with no real direction or having left anything meaningful in its path.
Once the film has established the vile nature of men when it comes to sex work, and it does so a few too many times, though each time it does so with great effect, the film begins to establish its main dynamic. The main focal point of the film is a relationship that takes place between Glory Kevin’s Princess and Lino Musella’s Corrado. This is where the problems of the film really shine. Corrado is presented as a juxtaposition between the usual nature of Princess’ clients. He’s friendly, warm and seems uninterested in meaningless sex. The tone of the sequences involving the two are light-hearted and there’s this ease between them that comes off as more familial. Princess seems to revert to this more child-like state while Corrado becomes more of a parental figure. The film goes as far to essentially spell this out by making Princess fall in love with the idea of being looked after.
In these initial moments when the relationship is more playful, it’s hard to enjoy such frivolity that the film wants you to as there’s this undertone, that was established earlier in the film and in real life, that a relationship of this nature will not last. This is on the viewer however as the film doesn’t really build this unease or discomfort in said scenes, it comes from our pre-established thoughts on their relationship. And while that might be interesting to challenge our preconceived notions of what we deem a relationship between a young woman and an older man to be, the film plays out in the most bizarre way.
The nature of this relationship doesn’t particularly sour, however the more the film goes on they establish that Corrado is more interested in them being together officially, and Princess plays along with this idea as it seems to please her the idea of being looking after for once. All the while this idea of Princess reverting to childlike behaviour continues to grow and culminates in a strange way that doesn’t marry these two ideas well at all. The film just felt a little hollow in the themes it was attempting and sort of “male-gazey”. With both the nature of said relationship, a mishandled scene between Princess and one of her friends and a lot of the cinematography and choices to sexualise Princess in a film that wants to sympathise with sex workers.
However, if one thing can be said about the film it’s that Glory Kevin gave a stunning performance. It’s insane how well she handles both the comedic and dramatic parts of the film and is able to control the tone of scenes simply with her acting. As a debut performance as well, this was simply amazing, and she should be booked after this. The performance isn’t enough to elevate the film from the uncomfortable quandary between the tone and the plot