Venice Review: Roberto De Paolis’ Horizons Opener ‘Princess’
deadline.comRoberto De Paolis’ second film has such a heightened sense of the absurd — a playful, almost naïve tone that’s completely at odds with its subject matter — that it can only come from real life.
That turns out to be very much the case in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section opener Princess, a story based on the true-experiences of Nigerian sex workers, many of them trafficked, in contemporary Italy.
The result is a curiously queasy mix of comedy and drama that, while taking an admirable view of its lead character as a complex heroine rather than a victim to be pitied, falls into many of the same tropes in more cliched depictions of prostitution.The title character, Princess (Glory Kevin), works in a forest outside a major city with her friend Success, with whom she competes for “clients” — usually white men who pull up in their sports cars, trucks and family hatchbacks.
Princess wears a pink wig, Success a red wig, and later, after a falling out, they swap hairpieces to see who’s the more popular.
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