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It’s been 25 years since Diana’s tragic death in a car crash in Paris as she and her companion Dodi Al Fayed fled from paparazzi photographers. Perkins’ paper opens with this moment, captured by a couple on vacation. In their grainy home video, you can clearly see Princess Diana’s car speeding into the night, motorcycle paparazzi hot on their trail. It’s a bleak way to start the doc, but by starting where we know it ends, Perkins removes the excitement of waiting for that moment from the viewer.
Instead, it takes us on a journey through Princess Diana’s life on film, without added contextualizing text or talking heads. The media shots speak for themselves, as do Princess Diana and Prince Charles themselves. The other genius of starting with this filmed car is that it lets you know from the start how often it has been filmed driving or being driven. From their wedding day, there is footage of the couple’s every move by car; from the transport to and arrival at St. Paul’s Cathedral, their departure and procession through London, and their arrival back home. There is later footage of her leaving the hospital in a car after giving birth to Prince Harry. Alongside her wedding, the car that holds her coffin during her funeral procession is also photographed from every possible angle.
This obsession with tracking her movement in cars is evident even in the earliest footage used. A journalist follows Diana as she makes her way to her cheeky orange car, asking probing questions about her upcoming engagement to the prince. This Diana is young (19) and not yet familiar with the media. But even though she’s shy, you already see her sly smile and glimpses of who this young girl could have been if she’d been able to grow outside the confines of the royal family.
In her first official joint interview with Charles as an engaged couple, she can barely look at the camera, keeping her body inward. She answers in simple, direct sentences. She mostly follows Charles’ example. Later in such paired interviews, Diana’s transformation is evident not only in her fashion choices, but also in the way she feels more comfortable speaking on camera. She carries herself with confidence. Her answers are playful, often teasing Charles.
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