An extraordinarily handsome film about the ugliest milieu imaginable, Anders Morgenthaler’s adult animation Princess is full of contradictions. Unmistakably Danish in its unswerving approach to the grim realities of the porn business, the film employs a distancing, stylised animation technique and approach to violence (there’s lots and it’s harrowing) that evokes Japanese anime. The stunning animation is augmented with snippets of grainy live-action footage, shot on a video camera. This is a very effective device for most of the film, although a live-action final coda is a wince-inducing misjudgment.
The inexorable arc of the story follows a former priest, August, as he tries to care for his niece Mia after the death of her porn-actress mother, August’s sister Christine, aka the Princess. But as a