I'm a huge fan of animation and Denmark's Princess from 2006 gives me more reasons to be fan of this genre.Princess is a recipe for an excellent film. You have a great animation, as well as some originality - there's some live-action also. You have two highly likable characters - August and Mia, and their relationship is what carries the movie. There's a great plot, where some moments make you happy and others - sad. If that isn't enough the film is about darker themes. One other thing I'll point out about Princess is a scene that had an awesome style (I don't want to spoil the scene).There's nothing in Princess that ruins the experience. A little, microscopic flaw is within the animation at some moments could be polished.Princess is a must-watch for fans of animation and films and it is an excellent film.

While released to theaters in Denmark way back in June of last year, it was only recently that I was finally able to view this film for myself and see what all the buzz was about. "Princess" combines live action video segments with simple animation to tell a modern day "Grimm's Fairy Tale" that is both shocking in its subject matter and stark in its overall emotional storyline. Thure Lindhardt is the voice of August Chistensen, a fledgling Catholic Priest who has come back to his hometown to visit his younger sister Christina (Stine Fischer Christensen in live action flashbacks) whom he has become estranged of late. Christina has become a rising porn star in Demark (she goes by the alluring porn name "Princess"). August is aghast at his sister's depraved lifestyle, even more so after discovering that she is still performing lewd acts even while pregnant with her first child. He leaves without getting the chance to talk with her but holds out hope that they can mend their once close relationshipTragically, reconciliation never materializes as Christina dies five years later, leaving her daughter Mia (voiced by Mira Hilli Møller Hallund) at the hands of a kindly brothel madam. Guilty and concerned about his niece's situation, August decides to take Mia to live with him. August finds his faith severely tested as he begins to unravel and discover the horrific life his sister has lead and the abuse both she and Mia experienced (Mia has been both physically and sexually abused). The crowning indignity of Christina's tragic life is the phallic adorned mausoleum erected in her "honor" by Christina's longtime lover and "pimp", Charlie (who owns the mega porn company "Paradise Lust" where Christina was employed). August's rage soon boils over when he finds Mia innocently mimicking the sexual acts found in one of Christina's home movies. He soon dedicates himself to "eradicating" all evidence of Christina's humiliating life from this world--destroying the porn company she was a part of and to kill Charlie.The screenplay by Mette Heeno and Anders Morgenthaler is quite inventive. "Princess" is most certainly a revenge story but it is also the story of innocence lost. It is quite sad to see the once vibrant and personable Christina "fall" into the world of porn and the ramifications her life has had not only on her but also her daughter. Similar to "Death Wish", August represents the everyman pushed to the limits of patience and tolerance and driven to the point of rage and madness.Director Morgenthaler's use of simple animation to tell this story is very effective indeed. The sordid and dirty world of porn is reduced into a surreal and exaggerated childlike cartoon, an almost fantasy. It is reflective of August's desire to want to shield and protect Mia from the harsh reality (represented by the grainy video of her mother and the wicked and tragic path she took) of the real world and keep her within a more innocent child's world. That being said this is not a kid's movie, and the violence and bloodshed unleashed by August is definitely startling, but not to the point of being obscene.The character designs of Mads Juul and Kristjan Møller, while vaguely reminiscent of Japanese animation, reminded me a lot of the work of Ralph Baski's especially his 70's movies like "Fritz the Cat" or "Coonskin" which also brought adult themes to the medium of cartoon. I found Mia to be a bit hard to believe as a character as she seemed much too "mature" to be a five year old. It also didn't help that her character was drawn with an overly massive head (I assume to accommodate her expressive facial features and wide eyes). Perhaps this was done in a deliberate manner."Princess" tells a cautionary tale that seeks to say that nothing good comes from revenge except more sadness and tragedy. It is not a happy tale nor was it meant to be."Princess" is not for everyone but will certainly leave a long lasting impression for those able to see it.

As the film festival winds down and all the big stars leave the city, the reality of returning back to the normal life begins to sink in. But it's not totally over yet. There is still one more day left, tomorrow I get to watch Sheitan, which hopefully isn't Sheity as the title somehow suggests. Tonight, I saw Princess, which was everything but sheity.Princess is a Denmark / German import that is comprised of 80% animation and 20% live action. The director, Anders Morgenthaler, puts together a picture that is definitely not something you see in theatres around here. There are a number of facets that make Morgenthaler's Princess stand up tall from the crowd (cliché #1). Firstly, the subject matter; the movie is about a priest who effectively quits his job and coherently scraps his religious beliefs when he allows his life to be rattled by rage and driven by violence. Secondly, the impetus behind the forthcoming violence has never been seen before. The priest (August) (Yes his name is also the name of the popular summer month) returns back to his hometown after hearing of his sister's death. What he learns from here only sickens his soul to the point of blinding his judgment of appropriate justice. He learns that his sister (Christina) (aka Princess) (her porn queen pseudonym) has died an unnecessary death due to the misogyny of Charlie, the president of Lust Paradise, the porno studio Christina worked for. Ironically, August the priest, reacts to this loss, not with sorrow and harmless grief, but with intense and violent vengeance.The third facet then is the path of destruction that August sets forth on -- towards his ultimate goal of murdering Charlie. This is not your typical Pixar movie which keeps kid audiences giggling and upbeat, but rather a much more subdued, dark movie that consistently permeates a tone that makes you feel sorry and more sorry for the characters on screen. Not mentioned yet, but absolutely crucial to the cohesiveness of the story is Mia, Christina's under-loved, abused and emotionally scarred daughter. After Christina's death, she is taken under August's wings. August solemnly tells Christina that he will take care of her and never let her go. It is through August's acquaintance with his alienated niece, that he finds the straw that breaks his camel's back (Grrrreat cliché #2). He learns that August was assaulted by Charlie and later discovers he even sexually molested Mia. The child has seen the world through the wrong glasses and this irritates August up and through to the existential plane of frustration. He believes Mia does not deserve to live in this kind of reality, and she doesn't need a matriarchal role model who has sex for a living. In a disturbing and emotionally awkward scene, Mia joins some children in the courtyard of August's apartment for a game of doctor. Since the roles of the doctor, nurse and patient were already taken - Mia feels obligated to succumb to the only role she knows; a whore. After announcing this, the children react apprehensively, but curiously play along. In the next cut, the nurse has left, leaving the doctor and the patient or the two boys with Mia, the whore. From a low angle, we see Mia almost teasing the boys with her skirt as she slowly lifts it up and over her crotch. Awed by this novel experience the boys dumbfoundedly ask what to do. From witnessing her mother on home movies, Mia naturally and naively tells one of the boys to get on top of her. At this point, the situation gets tense when one of the boys picks up a twig and connotatively suggests another fashion of entry. Mia still has some ounce of moral judgment to realize this is wrong and resists, but the boys push forward until --- oops, you'll have to watch the movie, because I'm getting drowsy!It is powerful scenes like this which poignantly drive the audience through a series of long thoughtful gazes to satisfying sentiments of fitting vengeance and brutalization (it's not healthy to repress anything, including our inner most prehistoric instincts!). Princess shines in a genre of it's own which resists calling itself: an action movie, a drama, a dark comedy, a cartoon, a live-action movie or an unsheity movie because Princess does not holistically fit into any one of these groups, because it belongs in all of them. Kudos to Denmark for releasing such an unbarred film that liberates viewers with a penchant for cerebral activity to think beyond convention!

August is a priest who returns to Denmark from missionary work to take care of his five year old niece Mia when his sister Christina dies of a drug overdose. August has spent years trying to save others through his work but was powerless to help Christina, whose life was a downward spiral since achieving fame in life as the titular "Princess"- a porn star. His feelings of guilt turn to anger when he realizes that his sister wasn't the only victim of this seedy underworld, but that little Mia has a long documented history of sexual and physical abuse. He directs his rage towards the men behind the camera that used and abused his sister and her daughter to line their own pockets. Thus begins a bloody tale of vengeance as August, with Mia as his side, resolves to wipe his sisters porn legacy from the face of the planet, while all the time trying to reach his prize- Charlie- the man who was Christina's lover, and who first brought her fame as the Princess.To say that the film is good is to do it a disservice. The film is simply put a work of art. The animation, while always limited, achieves something in its simplicity that all the millions of costly pixels (-seemingly employed by everyone and their third cousin twice removed these days) simply cannot. Honesty. August's journey is a cautionary tale- making no bones about the fact that the first victim of revenge (no matter how good the case for revenge may be) is always the one who seeks it. This is a complex film which challenges the viewer in that it makes us understand and indeed root for August but, as the body count rises, literally destroys any good in him in the process. What starts out as wish fulfillment fantasy ala Kill Bill, turns decidedly nasty as Morgenthaler never lets you forget that the lives lost to August's cause are not always deserving, or if indeed they are, they are only deserving seen from a certain point of view. There are no universal rights or wrongs, no innocents. Just people. I would love to write more on this point, but firmly believe that it would spoil the journey for anyone coming into the film fresh.Morgenthaler is in a league that few can claim. I was constantly and happily reminded of Scorsese ala "Mean streets" and "Taxi Driver", of Towne and Polanski ala "Chinatown". There is a fierce directness to this work that is staggering and his decisions are constantly surprising. The film is inter-cut with live action footage, taken by August in his youth when he was a camera nut. This lays out the back story of their lives and charts how all this came to pass. I was wary of this concept going into the film as I have rarely thought that mixing these two media was successful. With one exception he pulls it off, the shaky home video feel adds credence to the animated world (not to mention the porn, which with the exception of the opening sequence is always shown live action), plus providing us with a third reel whammy that will knock you for six.The star of the film though is Mia. She is the ultimate in innocence corrupted. Where as in "Perfect Blue" we watched as a childlike young woman is tortured by a sexual predator, here we have an actual child who has experienced much worse, but is too young to have any idea of the psychological consequences. She is hurt, frightened, tragically sad, but only seen from our point of view. She was raised in this world, and that's all she really knows. Playing house for her is something entirely different then for other children. It is played for laughs at times, but Morgenthaler chokes that laugh in your throat by never letting you forget the sheer horror of what it is you are watching. It leaves a lasting mark on you that is hard to shake.I cannot recommend this film highly enough.