Princesas | DVD Review

With Princesas as his sixth film, Fernando León de Aranoa is consistent with his striving to be Spain’s answer to Ken Loach or Mike Leigh. Here, as with his critically acclaimed Mondays in the Sun, Aranoa centers his story on Spain’s poor and marginalized.

Candela Pena (recognizable from Almodóvar’s All About my Mother) plays Caye, a middle-class prostitute living in Madrid, who often joins her family for dinner; but keeps them in the dark about her profession. We suspect that her grieving mother (who holds delusions about her deceased husband returning) knows that her daughter is selling her body– though it is never brought up, and the audience is never clued in as to why a girl from a relatively well-off family would make such a life choice. She is intelligent, rational and thoughtful and we can only suspect that there is a pressing reason for her involvement in a job which clearly upsets her (as Aranoa mistakenly chooses to moralize and point out the negative aspects of the sex trade.)

Caye, and her friends and co-workers, spend their time between shifts at a hair salon which overlooks an open strip populated by immigrant prostitutes who are taking an alarming amount of business away as they sell themselves for much cheaper. Caye and her cohorts are vehemently opposed and spiteful towards this group, and daily they harass and phone the police on their competition. When Zulema, a Dominican immigrant (played by newcomer Micaela Navarez) working there to raise money for her child and mother, is injured by an abusive client, Caye reconciles her hostility, sympathizing and caring for her, and they quickly become friends.

The film, from here on is largely circular, long and pointless. Apart from Caye’s interesting family dynamics, nothing much really goes on, save for more episodes of physical abuse towards Zulema and a chance at a ‘normal’ love affair with Caye. The abuse scene is hackneyed and largely pointless, in no way helping to be a sum of the film’s whole; and the character who commits the crime is one dimensional and over-played, therefor it lacks any resonance. The love affair Caye has with a ‘nice-guy’ computer programmer (luis Callejo) feels contrived and without depth, and all this is largely without reason and uninteresting, save a scene where she gives a blow-job to a familiar client in a public washroom while on a date with the unwitting man. It is scenes like this, which serve to enforce Aranoa’s hollow moralizing of the sex trade, where he neglects the intelligence of his audience by giving us a good/bad dichotomy which we are used to being fed by the shovel load in Hollywood fare.

Overall, the bad storytelling ruins what are some truly amazing performances by the two leads, who, through first-class acting, manage to bring a depth and range to their respective characters. Another upside to the film is its lush and highly competent cinematography, showcasing the beautiful actresses and Spain’s vibrant colors, both by day and night. Unfortunately, the brighter points of the film, as good as they are, do not justify its length (114 minutes) or arbitrary plot devices and shallow treatment of themes regarding racism, violence and the sex trade.


There are no additional features on this DVD. It offers subtitles in both English and Spanish, with further sound descriptions for the hearing impaired. Widescreen and in color.

Aranoa had fine intentions with this project, and overall he manages to get some incredible performances from his leads, and shows a sympathy and a love of these characters, worthy of a comparison to Pedro A; but shoddy script-work ultimately sabotages what could have been an interesting and moving film. Watch for these women in future projects and let’s hope the director chooses a script worthy of himself and his actor’s levels of competence.

Movie rating – 2

Disc Rating – 1