Princesses

When I saw Los Lunes al Sol, another Spanish film from the same Director, I could almost feel what it was like to be an unemployed man in our society. I thought Princesas would be at least a bit realistic regarding the life of a prostitute. I was wrong. The film is cute, has some rhythmic music, the two main characters are likable, etc. but the story is way too light. The film touches from far away certain issues like exploitation, venereal diseases, racism, etc. but it NEVER gets into reality. The general feeling is like being a prostitute is more fun that any other thing... just a step below "Pretty Woman". Princesas is definitely just a commercial film and (besides some acting)has nothing to be considered high quality.

Fernando León De Aranoa's film Princesas, is a touching and emotional journey about two young women who work the streets of Madrid, out of pure desperation. They are in hopes of starting a new life. It isn't the typical Hollywood prostitute movie; it is much more than that. It is a very agonizing movie that puts you in these intense characters shoes, and you try to understand how they deal with their day to day struggles. Aranoa gives perspective and creates this underlying sympathy that continuously tugs at your heart strings.

I felt for Caye the minute the movie started and she was walking into that hospital room to show the young boy a good time. How humiliating I thought to myself, but she had no choice. Again you feel for her when you realize that she is living a double life. She tries to enjoy a quite lunch with her family but her phone is constantly antagonizing and bringing her back to her reality, which for me seems like a living hell. I have seen movies before about prostitutes like "Pretty Woman," a typical American Hollywood film. It is sad and then it has a typical happy ending. Princesas is raw and real, it doesn't turn Caye and Zulema's lives into a fairy tale. It is refreshing to see an original and genuine film about an issue that is prevalent in the world today. There are women all over the world that have no other choice. I feel like Aranoa's film is giving these women a voice. Prostitutes are people, and they do what they can to survive.

"Princesas" is one of them. After seeing Fernando León de Aranoa's wonderful film "Los Lunes al Sol" (qv), I was hungry for more. I am a great lover of cinema which has either been taken from live theatre or which delve into the realness of the human condition, of human feelings, which explore the depths of what makes people tick, of what makes people think, feel, love, hate, of what makes people on celluloid be real live living people with character and personality and deep feelings. In this aspect "Princesas" is a beautiful, moving, thoughtful piece which deserves great accolade. I left the cinema with very very deep feelings running through my heart and mind, such that I missed the bus-stop, and in the end walked all the way home - about three kilometres!

Without any doubt, the young Spanish directors Amenábar and León de Aranoa are now well above the more famous Almodóvar. "Princesas" is about prostitutes. Well, forget that: it is about two beautiful people who find themselves working the streets - and the mobile (cell) phone - to get clients. But it is also about friendship, love between two women who have had to drop out into the seamier world of the big cities - in this case, Madrid.

León de Aranoa treats the subject matter with such poignant delicacy, with such understanding sensitivity, with such superb and tasteful exquisiteness, that towards the end of the film more than one little tear dropped from my eyes. And that does not often happen.

Candela Peña, (Todo sobre mi madre, qv) (Te doy mis ojos, qv), and Micaela Nevárez in her first film, offer us superb readings of their characters; both are superb; both won my heart. The chemistry between these two young women - Spanish and Dominican - was so magnificent, you would swear they had lived all their lives together. They had me feeling for them, for their situation, for their loves, and desires, and hopes, and Zulema wanting to get back to her child in the Dominican Republic.

The music by Manu Chao and Gato Pérez was at times a little over strident, but befitting the telling of the story. (There are also other pieces of music not yet mentioned in IMDb).

Ramiro Civita's photography, especially in the facial close-ups is astounding, bringing out the best of the actresses feelings, anguish, torments. Superb work, though some scenes with hand-held camera were at times chaotic. Nevertheless, I pass over this.

The same as in "Te doy Mis Ojos"(qv) we have here an important sociological document in the form of a film with a story to tell. Women find themselves in bad situations directly due to men's vain and stupid attempts at being superior over them. Men fail miserably; as I have said in "Te doy mis ojos": this film makes me feel ashamed of being a man. So does "Princesas". A beautiful, warm, tender, hard story, so wonderfully told.

I shall see this film again before it is taken off from the local multi -cinemas, and will buy the DVD as soon as it is in the shops.

Here is another film to add to the best six Spanish films of all times:

El Sur

Los Santos Inocentes

Mar Adentro

Princesas

Te doy Mis Ojos

A los que Aman (all commented on in IMDb)

...Because almost all the ones that do have money and connections are shallow and gutless and that's why you have to dig and dig and dig to find a good film.

Another reviewer got a 0/11 out of the eleven gracious contributors to this film fro saying this is boring. He was right in saying that the acting is indeed very good, the main actress does seem to overact a bit, but the domenican girl is a joy to watch, and the minor characters are very well acted too.

So, big love to the actors here, great job.

Big boos to the directors and screenwriters. What a shallow sophomoric story, no twists, no turns, and that could be acceptable if at least there was some semblance of a cinema verity, a gritty reality portrayed. But there's none of this.

The film doesn't build up, doesn't explore characters, doesn't even have one single story to tell. Forget imagination or plot. I am not a blockbuster Hollywood viewer but give me something more than some shallow musings on "someone exists because you remember them" and about princesses being too sensitive. Any way you cut it, under any sympathetic light you might want to view the film it fails miserably and that's because of the flat, dirt poor story and characterisation.

It's more than obvious that the director and writer are clueless when it comes to prostitution and that's why this is reduced to boring stereotypes.

Unfortunately very few real prostitutes rise from the gutter to tell their story. Let me rephrase that because I 've read some wonderful insightful books about prostitution from prostitutes. Very few real prostitutes actually get that big chunk of money to make a film. I tell you whatever little contact I had with working girls as a man, some of those short rushed discussions were far more honest and heartbreaking than any of this boring trite.

Let's be frank prostitution exists because men are horny and men have power, and prostitutes do what they do because some of them are lazy and want an easy way out, and most of them have been abused and are tortured souls, they are also poor girls and some are stupid girls. It's not a happy subject matter because it reflects on the atrocious nature of people, mostly men. It might not even be an interesting matter. But if you are going to tackle it, there's stuff there for sure, if you are to make a movie of it there's so much there to avoid banality and clichés. The sheer number of which here are mind blowing.

But of course that's happens when people with money make films about issues they have neither the sensitivity nor the intellect to handle, and that they've not lived through for sure. So we get clichés: hiv, the bad pimp, the junkie, the college kid, the immigrant, uuuggghhh...

And what's with 15 manu chao songs in a single film? Straight from an "anti globalisation" march.

To my recollection, I have only seen one other movie about the lives of prostitutes. Sure there was Pretty Woman, but that really didn't get into the actual work. This film is different and really does a great job showing the less glamorous side.

Fernando León de Aranoa wrote and directed the film and it moves along well. It certainly keeps your interest. The soundtrack is also a big plus.

Candela Peña (All About My Mother) is Caye, who rarely smiles as she deals with her mother, who seems to be losing it, and tries to establish a real relationship that keeps bumping up against her occupation.

A new actress, Micaela Nevárez is Zulema, who is consumed with the child she left in the Dominican Republic. She is trying to get papers to get out of Spain, and is taken advantage of by a sleazy public official. She gets revenge in an unusual way.

Together Caye and Zulema are friends and they try to survive in spite of their occupation. It is a times funny, and certainly sad as they try to find that opening to a better life.