4.5/10

Thanks, rlslog!

so for all those of you who claim to have seen this, and describe it as either religious propaganda, or just a ‘rip off’ of japanese anime with no new ideas:

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

wtf!?! are you people insane? or have you just not actually watched the film but feel prepared to pass hideously unfounded judgements on it anyway? perhaps you watched it but just didnt get it?

@the original geek – i wouldnt say the film is anti pornography really. it highlights the fact that the pornstars are real people (through the jarring use of live action camcorder video of the girl playing christina/princess), and the strongest the anti-porn message gets is highlighting that the industry can mess people up. we are given the strong suggestion that the only reason christina became princess was because she suffered the trauma of being essentially raped by her landlord aged 14 (just so charlie could use his secret recording of it to blackmail the landlord to let them stay), very soon after having essentially caused the deaths of her parents. i certainly dont know where youve got the idea that it was “entirely her choice to be a drug addicted w***hore” because the film rather strongly implicates august as equal party in her downfall – he promised to look after her when their parents died, but then ran away because he couldnt deal with seeing his sister have sex and was too afraid to confront the landlord.

the ’strong family unity’ message you mention isnt really driven home until the end – having seen the consequences of august’s actions (BIG SPOILER – princess, mia and august himself all die), we are left to reflect how at any point august could have salvaged something by showing love rather than the more negative spectrum of emotions – shame, anger, hatred and violent vengeance. he couldve taken care of his sister as he promised, but instead ran away to be a missionary. he then had the choice to save mia and himself (and multe), but instead of facing up to that responsibility, he chose to place blame on the porn industry and seek retribution.

although august sees a simple morality spectrum of black and white, we are shown the shades in between – noone is blameless in the film (except perhaps multe!); even mia abandons multe because she is thinking only of herself. multe responds with the same anger mia has shown to august – both mia and august have failed in their promises to look after multe and mia respectively.

in fact, the ending is the only part which has any possible religious message – it could be interpreted that august, christina and mia are in heaven. but thats only one of many possible readings – the short live action scene of them sitting on the beach has no dialogue, and although the music is very religiously significant, it also serves to counterpoint the death and destruction that preceeded it. the scene is intentionally ambiguous and open-ended. we are invited to judge the three characters, and decide where they are (heaven/hell/??), if indeed they are anywhere at all.

the whole film serves as a critique of both the gangland/mafia-style way parts of the porn industry are run, while also criticising those who pass moral judgements on the industry but dont help to find solutions to the problems. august’s abandonment and shame of his sister is what drives her to self-destruction. perhaps if he had stuck by her, and shown her love (like his religion would tell him to), she would have stopped her pursuit of what was essentially self-harm (because she was so traumatised by the deaths that she witnessed and her early exposure to sex with strangers). later, when he comes back to ’save’ her after mia’s birth, his intentions are selfishly motivated – he feels he has to redeem himself as a brother to christina and uncle to mia, but its already too late – christina doesnt want to be ’saved’, and uses his binary morality to scare him away.

in short – christina is not merely a whore, mia is not simply a cute little girl, and august most certainly isnt the super-dooper hero of the story. hes more like an anti hero, or a tragic hero; on several occasions we have it spelled out to us that august’s mind is far from healthy; its not insignificant that august is the only adult who ’sees’ that multe is ‘alive’. in the gunbattle prior to the climax of the film, august takes a crucifix around a man’s neck as a sign from god that it is ok to shoot the people (men and women) that have ambushed him. “what would jesus do” this most certainly is not.

and now @48 doe – for a start, the stuff ive highlighted above is quite a few new ideas for an anime flick; its not full of existential philosophical chin-stroking, and the violence and vengeance angle is rather different to the traditional japanese honour system.

secondly, the animation itself is very different indeed; while theyve taken the lovely backdrops and treatment of light from japanese anime, theyve used a variety of different techniques (such as using black-and-white photos and/or screenprints to pick out detail in the images, as well as unusually low frame-rate stop motion cell animation, not to mention the weird car crash scene which combines pretty every type of animation, and live film as possible).

as for the similarities between shots in classic anime, this was clearly intentional (my neighbour totoro gets LOADS of nods), seeing as how its quite a post-modern arthouse film. whether you like it or not is a personal thing – personally i found it quite fun spotting the references, and thought in a good few places it actually served to enhance the story telling, as just a short shot or segment could easily convey the mood associated with the corresponding scene or full film. at any rate, its certainly not ‘ripping off’ the japanese anime – imitation is the finest form of flattery after all, and filmmakers have ALWAYS borrowed shots from other films to pay homage to them.

so, to those of you so incredibly critical of a rather good (not outstanding, but certainly not bad, and full of ideas): either you havent really watched the film, havent payed enough attention, or havent understood it. sorry if it annoys you for someone to make that point to you in such a longwinded fashion, but its the simple fact – you cant have watched, payed attention, and understood, and still criticise it for being either too moralistic or just a rip off. it is neither of those. so next time, watch it and think before you post unnecessary rubbish.

some working subs!

http://www.opensubtitles.com/en/subtitles/3268876/princess-en

It made me sadder than Million Dollar Baby. But not as sad as Grave of the Fireflies.

Get over yourselves and watch a simple, basic movie for what it is.

i like the part when August plants a bomb in Mohammed’s turban.

Pornography and alternative lifestyles=Destructive and should be eliminated.

Religion,Family,children=Positive and Holy

There’s absolutely no grey area.

As for the film itself as a whole it has some great qualities. Let the people who watch it decide about the messages.