‘Unlawful Killing’ at Cannes Film Festival Sparks Controversy

This Friday, a documentary titled “Unlawful Killing” will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival but not everyone is excited to watch it. The Kieth Allen movie features a paparazzi photo of Princess Diana, taken moments after her fatal car crash according to the Daily Mail.

Friends of the royal family are outraged that this graphic image is being shown in the movie. “Unlawful Killing” will be screening “everywhere except the UK,” says Allen because British officials want him to significantly edit the film, which probably includes removing that controversial and disturbing photo of Princess Diana.

Some film enthusiasts may call Allen’s move “a work of art” using the quest for realism to back them up while others view it as an attempt to exploit Princess Diana by making money off of her memory. Whether the photo is inappropriate or not, it’s sure to bring some extra attention to this year’s Cannes Film Festival. In a time when entertainment audiences are comfortable watching violence and people dying in film, television and video games, it is a wonder what makes this “Unlawful Killing” documentary so different that it stirs up disdain in the minds of those who may not have even known her.

Allen claims that this movie reveals a plot involving Prince Philip and Prince Charles to kill Princess Diana to stop her from marrying the Duke of Edinburgh’s son. If there is a cover-up, those who do not want this to be revealed are likely to be the very ones who do not want this documentary shown to the public. Getting people to focus on the photo issue may be an effort to distract audiences from what Allen claims to be the main point of the documentary.....foul play.

Then again, maybe a lot of people are just not okay with seeing images of a real person dying, princes or not, in a movie. People are killed in the recent movies such as “Hanna” and “Scream 4” but there are rarely, if any complaints about those scenes. This could be because many movie going audiences are desensitized to the images but it could also be due to the fact that none of these scenes are real. There is a clear difference between a good guy or bad guy getting killed in a scene and a real-life image of a person’s actual death scene.

There are probably many alternative ways in which the main point of this documentary could have been described without showing photos from the scene of Princess Diana’s death. However, an argument could also be made that some people would probably find “Unlawful Killing” less disrespectful if it were the product of Princess Diana’s family instead of an outsider. What if the royal family released the documentary instead or gave the filmmaker their approval.

It is a wonder if this controversy would even be an issue. The VH1 network seemed to have the family’s blessing when they released “Last Days of Left Eye.” Even though it disturbed some viewers when it premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival and aired on television, this documentary appeared to be generally accepted by fans of TLC and the late singer.....probably because she purposely recorded the footage in this documentary.

What do YOU think?

So, is the use of this car crash image in “Unlawful Killing” distasteful because someone is dying?

Is it wrong because the filmmaker’s agenda to expose a conspiracy to murder princess Diana puts a questionable spotlight on those who are the subject of his accusations?

Would the documentary still have an impact on, or be of interest to movie going audiences if these images of Princess Diana in question were edited out of the picture?

If the documentary was released by the royal family instead of a third-party, would the same concerns be raised regarding these Princess Diana car crash photos?

This post is the latest in my Film Festival Wednesdays series. If there are any film festival related events that you would like to see covered on this blog, contact me, as all suggestions are taken into consideration.

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Comments

[HermanTurnip]

I think it's good that people are talking about this. There's a huge difference between a movie death and the death of a real person. This controversy proves that not everyone out there is jaded and desensitized. It shows that there's something inside us that has compassion and empathy towards the misfortunes of another human being, even one we've never met in person but are all too familiar with.

Sure, I could sit in a theater and watch 100 vampires get staked, a plane full of convicts go down in flames, and a giant lizard destroy Tokyo because I know what I'm seeing isn't real. But man, show me the death photo of someone like Princess Di and I instantly cringe and wish I hadn't seen it. It doesn't mean I want to boycott such a film. It just isn't my mug of ale...

[Richard]

My first thought is that while photos of humans dying may be repulsive perhaps they bring reality to death and may mitigate the violence in so called "action" films. To many death may not be a real outcome when there are daily incidents of same in reality.

I do not think that this exposes a conspiracy except that it is motivated by the makers production funds.

The photos are used to drive perverse interest in an otherwise uninteresting production.

And the Royal family would not display the photography.

This is a very interesting assessment with interesting questions.

The film raises another point of view that resolves nothing. This is best left to the court where the jury ruled the princess was unlawfully killed through grossly negligent driving.