It is beautiful to watch how her mouth curls with the many unkind words that are thrown her way and how despite that she doesn’t dissipate. It is powerful to watch how despite the many warnings, she says things exactly the way she wants to
Spencer hit the theatres on November 5, 2021| Collected
Sumaya Mashrufa
Publish : 29 Dec 2021, 01:35 PMUpdate : 29 Dec 2021, 01:35 PM
“Spencer” starts with a disclaimer-like line that says "A fable from a true tragedy." So right away the tone of the movie is set without toying around the tale we know all too well. It is that knowledge that becomes a character in the cinema. The collective perspective on Diana's life makes every frame palpable with a sense of loss. You'll want to almost shout and whisper to Diana, warning her of what is to come. Just like Diana says at one point in the cinema, "All set. As if everything's already happened," crushingly the audience know, yes everything has already happened.
Director Pablo Larrain starts the cinema with a close-up shot of a dead bird, and cars speeding over it. Later while talking to the chef named Darren, Diana learns these are the birds her son William will have to shoot as a ritualistic tradition. The chef says the ones they can't catch just get run over, that they are not the brightest of birds. In response, Diana pauses and says, "Beautiful but not very bright." This cinema is weaved like that, no frame is wasted and they are interconnected. To the point that it is hard not to take everything in the movie as a metaphor.
Photo: Collected
It is the December of 1991. Diana has to attend a three-day marathon of Christmas celebration, where the entire British Royal Family will be present. It is a make or break situation for Diana. She has found tangible proof of her husband's infidelity, and despite that, it is she who is on trial. Norfolk, where they would spend the time, though the place is so close to her home, while driving on her own to get there, she gets lost. She steps into a gas station shop and asks, "Where am I?" and a room full of strangers stare, and you start to ache.
Kudos to Kristen Stewart for inhabiting Diana so fully. A little further down the cinema, it escapes the mind that it is not actually Diana we are watching. Her eyes always carry the weight of her existence, her grief. It is beautiful to watch how her mouth curls with the many unkind words that are thrown her way and how despite that she doesn’t dissipate. It is powerful to watch how despite the many warnings, she says things exactly the way she wants to.
Photo: Collected
In the beginning, Diana seems to never stand tall, always cowering, as if in a perpetual bow. The buildings loom larger, and the people become tiny, insect-like when the frames go to wide shots. The big open spaces too, feel like a maze, not unlike the endless corridors Diana hast to cross. There's no private space, every minute a knock on the door, a call to observe some traditions, commands to obey duties, not even a moment of peace is there for her. Not just Diana though, everyone inside that monumental palace is to some extent stuck in a web, where they have to perform for the people. As Prince Charles at one point says to Diana it is because "they don't want us to be people." and the Queen echoes that in another point saying to Diana, "all you are, my dear, is currency."
Two things I want to mention here, the idea of grace and beauty. The two most attributed 'quality' to womanhood. In "Spencer," immediately the first becomes a lesson to be learned for Diana. Various paparazzi pictures, press releases, interviews are mentioned and brought up where Diana wasn't graceful, not up to the standard of British Royalty. And beauty becomes apparently the only thing they can't take away from her. When that is mentioned by a friend, Daiana says beauty is so useless. And one can perceive here,the price that has to be paid for grace and beauty. It evokes a universality, which is ubiquitous to all women.
Diana is so close to people's hearts, so treasured to women is because of that. That as a woman one can't but recognize the brokenness she carries. Her story is unique to her in numerous ways, but in many ways, it is not. If you take away and pluck out the peculiarities of being part of the British Royal family, the particular rules and tradition of it, the emotions become quite universal. The feeling of being trapped, being so utterly alone and devoid of authority that you can’t even breathe is recognizable. The bulimic Diana, who after every meal, rushes to the bathroom, and the pain after, her snot and tears covered face, her panting heart is recognizable. Her body is the only thing available to her, so she hurts it, makes it suffer because that is the only thing she controls. And when slowly in the movie you see her come out of it, you want to root for her, you want to cheer. Like her friend, you want to say, "They can't change," and so "You have to change." Because in countless ways, women all around the world have been through that rite of passage.
Photo: Collected
It is interesting that writer Steven Knight wrote these beautiful dialogues, most of which happen between Diana and the various house helps. Also, quite justifyingly, food plays a very strong part in the cinema, and Diana seems to open up as herself to Darren the chef. They talk like weary old friends. Except him, there is only Maggie, the Royal Dresser, with whom Diana is at ease. Maggie who says such beautiful things to her, things only a friend can say, like, "You are your own weapon. Don't cut it to pieces." And even there, Maggie is pulled out by the Royal authority from her duty. It becomes a game almost, finding silly little ways to prick her, making her see how truly she doesn't have any agency over her life.
Diana gets scolded often for opening up the curtains because the lenses are always peeking. She says they are microscopes really, and that she is "the insect in the dish." And as a viewer, you feel in your bones the agonizing truth of it all. You want her to survive. She who never could accept her future where she is a face on a coin to be passed from hand to hand, you want her tojust be. Be the little girl giddy on a bicycle, be the sunshine laughing with a friend. You want her heart that she wears on her sleeves to keep beating. And frankly, only a true master of a director can create such angst in cinema.
Photo: Collected
When Kristen Stewart as Diana says, "They can all see into me," I felt a little guilty. Because we are. We are dissecting her life. No, it's not just the creators of the film, but we all are actively looking into her. There’s no end to the number of documentaries and films and series about her. This culture of fetishizing tragedy, it, after all, made her a currency. She was the first fallen, blatantly indicating where the culture was heading. Where the more the clicked pictures the more the money. Where there is a sadistic pleasure in putting people in pedestals and then tearing them down.
In the movie, she dresses a scarecrow standing on the field with her bright yellow dress, and one can't but feel it is to drive the vultures away. Who are always there, and it's not just the Royal family and their grand old traditions, it is the culture of that moment, that still carries on, bolder than before. The culture that needs to turn people into currency.
Photo: Collected
But director Pablo Larrain diverges from the pack by never giving-in to the mythical aspect of the Diana story. Instead, this film provides a sense of closure. Her beauty and the gorgeous dresses she wears never steal the scenes; instead the dresses become ghastly almost, suffocating. It is as Kristen Stewart utters as Diana, "Beauty is useless." It is useless, at least the conventional sense of it.
She looks beautiful when nearing the end she doesn't cower anymore, where she dances, laughs, plays mischievous games with her boys, where she saves her boys, where her older son, William, doesn't have to shoot the birds after all.
Spencer: A scarecrow on the field
“Spencer” starts with a disclaimer-like line that says "A fable from a true tragedy." So right away the tone of the movie is set without toying around the tale we know all too well. It is that knowledge that becomes a character in the cinema. The collective perspective on Diana's life makes every frame palpable with a sense of loss. You'll want to almost shout and whisper to Diana, warning her of what is to come. Just like Diana says at one point in the cinema, "All set. As if everything's already happened," crushingly the audience know, yes everything has already happened.
Director Pablo Larrain starts the cinema with a close-up shot of a dead bird, and cars speeding over it. Later while talking to the chef named Darren, Diana learns these are the birds her son William will have to shoot as a ritualistic tradition. The chef says the ones they can't catch just get run over, that they are not the brightest of birds. In response, Diana pauses and says, "Beautiful but not very bright." This cinema is weaved like that, no frame is wasted and they are interconnected. To the point that it is hard not to take everything in the movie as a metaphor.
It is the December of 1991. Diana has to attend a three-day marathon of Christmas celebration, where the entire British Royal Family will be present. It is a make or break situation for Diana. She has found tangible proof of her husband's infidelity, and despite that, it is she who is on trial. Norfolk, where they would spend the time, though the place is so close to her home, while driving on her own to get there, she gets lost. She steps into a gas station shop and asks, "Where am I?" and a room full of strangers stare, and you start to ache.
Kudos to Kristen Stewart for inhabiting Diana so fully. A little further down the cinema, it escapes the mind that it is not actually Diana we are watching. Her eyes always carry the weight of her existence, her grief. It is beautiful to watch how her mouth curls with the many unkind words that are thrown her way and how despite that she doesn’t dissipate. It is powerful to watch how despite the many warnings, she says things exactly the way she wants to.
In the beginning, Diana seems to never stand tall, always cowering, as if in a perpetual bow. The buildings loom larger, and the people become tiny, insect-like when the frames go to wide shots. The big open spaces too, feel like a maze, not unlike the endless corridors Diana hast to cross. There's no private space, every minute a knock on the door, a call to observe some traditions, commands to obey duties, not even a moment of peace is there for her. Not just Diana though, everyone inside that monumental palace is to some extent stuck in a web, where they have to perform for the people. As Prince Charles at one point says to Diana it is because "they don't want us to be people." and the Queen echoes that in another point saying to Diana, "all you are, my dear, is currency."
Two things I want to mention here, the idea of grace and beauty. The two most attributed 'quality' to womanhood. In "Spencer," immediately the first becomes a lesson to be learned for Diana. Various paparazzi pictures, press releases, interviews are mentioned and brought up where Diana wasn't graceful, not up to the standard of British Royalty. And beauty becomes apparently the only thing they can't take away from her. When that is mentioned by a friend, Daiana says beauty is so useless. And one can perceive here,the price that has to be paid for grace and beauty. It evokes a universality, which is ubiquitous to all women.
Diana is so close to people's hearts, so treasured to women is because of that. That as a woman one can't but recognize the brokenness she carries. Her story is unique to her in numerous ways, but in many ways, it is not. If you take away and pluck out the peculiarities of being part of the British Royal family, the particular rules and tradition of it, the emotions become quite universal. The feeling of being trapped, being so utterly alone and devoid of authority that you can’t even breathe is recognizable. The bulimic Diana, who after every meal, rushes to the bathroom, and the pain after, her snot and tears covered face, her panting heart is recognizable. Her body is the only thing available to her, so she hurts it, makes it suffer because that is the only thing she controls. And when slowly in the movie you see her come out of it, you want to root for her, you want to cheer. Like her friend, you want to say, "They can't change," and so "You have to change." Because in countless ways, women all around the world have been through that rite of passage.
It is interesting that writer Steven Knight wrote these beautiful dialogues, most of which happen between Diana and the various house helps. Also, quite justifyingly, food plays a very strong part in the cinema, and Diana seems to open up as herself to Darren the chef. They talk like weary old friends. Except him, there is only Maggie, the Royal Dresser, with whom Diana is at ease. Maggie who says such beautiful things to her, things only a friend can say, like, "You are your own weapon. Don't cut it to pieces." And even there, Maggie is pulled out by the Royal authority from her duty. It becomes a game almost, finding silly little ways to prick her, making her see how truly she doesn't have any agency over her life.
Diana gets scolded often for opening up the curtains because the lenses are always peeking. She says they are microscopes really, and that she is "the insect in the dish." And as a viewer, you feel in your bones the agonizing truth of it all. You want her to survive. She who never could accept her future where she is a face on a coin to be passed from hand to hand, you want her tojust be. Be the little girl giddy on a bicycle, be the sunshine laughing with a friend. You want her heart that she wears on her sleeves to keep beating. And frankly, only a true master of a director can create such angst in cinema.
When Kristen Stewart as Diana says, "They can all see into me," I felt a little guilty. Because we are. We are dissecting her life. No, it's not just the creators of the film, but we all are actively looking into her. There’s no end to the number of documentaries and films and series about her. This culture of fetishizing tragedy, it, after all, made her a currency. She was the first fallen, blatantly indicating where the culture was heading. Where the more the clicked pictures the more the money. Where there is a sadistic pleasure in putting people in pedestals and then tearing them down.
In the movie, she dresses a scarecrow standing on the field with her bright yellow dress, and one can't but feel it is to drive the vultures away. Who are always there, and it's not just the Royal family and their grand old traditions, it is the culture of that moment, that still carries on, bolder than before. The culture that needs to turn people into currency.
But director Pablo Larrain diverges from the pack by never giving-in to the mythical aspect of the Diana story. Instead, this film provides a sense of closure. Her beauty and the gorgeous dresses she wears never steal the scenes; instead the dresses become ghastly almost, suffocating. It is as Kristen Stewart utters as Diana, "Beauty is useless." It is useless, at least the conventional sense of it.
She looks beautiful when nearing the end she doesn't cower anymore, where she dances, laughs, plays mischievous games with her boys, where she saves her boys, where her older son, William, doesn't have to shoot the birds after all.
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