Up there with cracks about abortion, terrorism and the Star Wars prequels, bringing up the death of the late Princess Diana is about as taboo as you can get.
It may not shock to hear therefore, that Unlawful Killing, a conspiracy theory film on the subject, was plagued by all sorts of libel issues since its conception – presumably backed up by laws against making that many British people cry at once.
The documentary, directed by Keith Allen and funded by Mohamed Al Fayed (the father of Dodi Fayed, Diana’s partner who also died in the crash), suggests that there may be more to the Princess’s 1997 death than meets the eye, with more than one mention of the words “dark forces”.
Screened in Cannes to a less than ecstatic audience, Al Fayed is said to have supplied the majority of the film’s £2.5m budget, and to be “delighted” at the result. However, The Sun reported that the film’s distributors struggled with specific insurance required to present the film to French and UK audiences, yet “this proved impossible to secure”. And with the news in 2011 that producers were close to making over 80 cuts in order to keep the film acceptable in the UK, it seemed that Unlawful Killing was keen to see the daylight. Surprise surprise, the film is now ”withdrawn in perpetuity.”
While “Withdrawn” seems to suggest that the film may be floating around somewhere, it must be remembered that this is the same project which saw Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret labelled ‘gangsters in tiaras’ – a phrase as hilariously incorrect as it is hilariously…hilarious.
On the less ridiculous side of Diana’s story, the first pictures of Naomi Watts as the Princess have emerged for Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Diana, to be released in 2012. The film will focus on her relationship with Dr. Hasnat Khan, and presumably twice the gangaster-queen action.
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