Rewiew by Sabrina Samone, TMP
Yes, I know it’s been out since 2001 but I finally get my chance to give a review about one of the best films ever about transgender people and the foreign
Italian/protégées sub titled film is one I felt, never got it's due respect in
the genre of American transgender films. This film that tackles a major taboo subject
rarely discussed with such simplicity. It tackles immigration and obtaining
proper identification as major factors in leading transgender women into
poverty. Having a love story about a heterosexual cis gender males’ love for a
transgender woman, has never been and has yet to be handled with such an intimate look into
two peoples struggle to have a healthy relationship and how gender dysphoria
affects it, or has tackled suicide and the unique relationships between like minded
trans-women and how we can relate to one another as much as Prinscesa has. A
film where a transgender woman is considered desirable and beautiful had never
and since been demonstrated in such away in a popular film. It has been 12 years since this film hit
the European screens and we as community, though are seeing progress and recent
achievement like Lavern Cox in Netflix’s ‘Orange is the New Black’, we are
obviously not seeing enough or fast enough from Hollywood to tackle diverse,
positive, realistic portrayals of transgender women and even more specifically,
transgender women of color.
Related Topics on Transmuseplanet
Yes, I know it’s been out since 2001 but I finally get my chance to give a review about one of the best films ever about transgender people and the foreign
Italian/protégées sub titled film is one I felt, never got it's due respect in
the genre of American transgender films. This film that tackles a major taboo subject
rarely discussed with such simplicity. It tackles immigration and obtaining
proper identification as major factors in leading transgender women into
poverty. Having a love story about a heterosexual cis gender males’ love for a
transgender woman, has never been and has yet to be handled with such an intimate look into
two peoples struggle to have a healthy relationship and how gender dysphoria
affects it, or has tackled suicide and the unique relationships between like minded
trans-women and how we can relate to one another as much as Prinscesa has. A
film where a transgender woman is considered desirable and beautiful had never
and since been demonstrated in such away in a popular film. It has been 12 years since this film hit
the European screens and we as community, though are seeing progress and recent
achievement like Lavern Cox in Netflix’s ‘Orange is the New Black’, we are
obviously not seeing enough or fast enough from Hollywood to tackle diverse,
positive, realistic portrayals of transgender women and even more specifically,
transgender women of color.
The young Brazilian Fernando, leaves a devout Catholic
family in the jungles of the Amazon; poor, African-descent, transgender and
beautiful, to move to Italy. There, Fernanda lives her life as a trans-woman, but
uneducated and young; her only means of making her dream come true as a woman
is to prostitute. She is first lead by her fellow transgender friends from her
area in Brazil. She differs from them because they are transvestite and the difference of
being transgender is portrayed beautifully but not seperately. She’s then lead to the madam of the local
Trans sex workers; who is mature and financially able to help Fernanda on her
journey until she meets Gianni. She meets Gianni by random, on one of her
working nights on the streets; he does not know, he is intrigued and began to
woo her into a romance. This film Tackles some delicate issues between trans-women and
heterosexual cis-gender men beautifully and is the only film to do so, so
deeply.
On many levels, Prinscesa tackles on at least one if not
many issues, faced by all Transgender women. It was during a time when a pre
session of transgender characters in
film were breaking records year after year, starting maybe with ‘Midnight in the Garden of Evil’, with the
Lady Chablis, then the ‘Crying Game’, which was the first ever to be nominated for
an Academy Award. Since then we had been replaced with female actress or gay
men portraying transgender characters like we did with Felicity Hoffman in ‘Transamerica’
and the recent decision on Broadway to have Neil Patrick Harris to play Hedwig
in the angry Inch, a jab at Transsexuals having a botched sex reassignment surgery.
It has been one major reason we all applaud the efforts having Lavern Cox, a
trans-woman of color play a dynamic transgender role as she does in OITNB. We need to show
more support for the filmmakers who choose to tackle intimate, mass educational
issues of Transgender women, played by Transgender women.
I had never been able to find good clips of the film on YouTube,
until recently I stumbled across this recent upload of the complete film. If
you haven’t seen Princessa, I highly recommend you do. It was a film far ahead of
its time and remains sadly so. Hope you enjoy the film as much as I do and see how
some of the most, delicate issues are addressed.
The Complete film in 1:30min in Italian/protégées
with english subtitles
1 comment:
I rarely waste my time on movies due to an auditory processing issue (think dyslexia for ears) and because most of them just aren't that good. Prinscesa was an exception and I'm glad I watched (yay for subtitles!). However, it took a day and a half to get out of the funk that film put me into...still, thank you for finding it and putting it out there. I'm still trying to decide if the ending was supposed to convey the idea that a) Fernanda fell back down to the level where she, "belonged" both socially & gender-wise, or b) she simply failed in her quest for a better life or c) she'd been fighting her life instead of appreciating it (obviously the optimistic choice).
I *hate* it when a movie does that to me. Now I have to go watch it again...
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