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His new film "The Princess" relies entirely on
archive video to trace Diana’s life from a timid teen to her
death on Aug. 31, 1997, aged 36, and the unprecedented scenes of
mourning that ensued.
In eschewing interviews and retrospective analysis traditionally
used as the narrative tool in documentaries, Perkins said he
hoped to explore the complicated relationship between Diana, the
media and the public and elicit an emotional response from
audiences.
"Our hope was to use the archive as a kind of time machine to
take audiences back into our collective pasts and allow them to
relive the story," he told Reuters.
Perkins, who was 11 when Diana died and remembers the confusion
he felt over the outpouring of emotion, said he hoped his style
of filmmaking would encourage audiences to reanalyse their own
relationship with the princess.
"The thing that's most interesting for me is what was our role
in this? What was our active role in the story? What was our
complicity?" said Perkins, who earned a 2019 Oscar nomination
for the documentary short "Black Sheep."
"The part of the Diana story of this puzzle that I felt was less
explored and more interesting for me was, what does Diana's
story say about all of us? And so that's the whole approach
here, to kind of immerse audiences in this present tense
unfolding, to never let you escape from the archive, to take you
back into these moments in all our lives."
Diana had just turned 20 when she married Charles in 1981 and
became the subject of global admiration and scrutiny. The
collapse of their marriage, which she blamed on Charles' lover
and future wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, only fuelled media and
public interest in Diana, who died when a limousine in which she
was riding crashed in a Parisian tunnel as she fled the
paparazzi.
"The Princess" will be released in theatres in Britain on June
30.
(Reporting by Hanna Rantala in London; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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