Queen Elizabeth arrives at the cinema

There Queen Elizabeth that you do not expect comes to the cinema. With Elizabeth – A Portrait in Parts, a docufilm-event which will remain in the room alone three days (until Wednesday 18th May) and will also allow those who will not be in the UK over the long weekend of Platinum Jubileeto celebrate the long-lived sovereign from afar.

When it comes to documentary we think of an ordered account of facts, accompanied by the testimonies of “talking heads”. Here, no: Elizabeththe latest work by the director of Notting Hill Roger Michell who passed away just shortly after completing the film in 2021, is anything but. He’s a affectionate and respectful homage at the woman that the Sovereign has reserved exclusively for family and friends, but that every now and then – in these 70 years of reign – peeped out even outside the gates of Buckingham Palace. Through a laughone joke, one silent (but eloquent) look, escaped from the official media, “cut” in the montages, but caught by those who knew how to recognize the more human side of this living icon.

And it is precisely these details that the director wanted collect and assemble in his docufilm, which shows the more private side of Elizabeth II. She found them among the endless hours of archival material who, together with his collaborators Kevin Loader And Joanna Crickmayviewed and analyzed, selecting the videos that offered a more intimate, personal and unprecedented access to the Queen’s life.

Divided into chaptersthe documentary thus tells, through these details, the most salient events in Elizabeth’s life not chronologically, but thematically: from the romantic “Engagement” in which we witness the birth of love with the young (and beautiful) Philipto the sad “Horribilis” in which the most difficult moments in the life of the Sovereign are marked, in the montage, by the images of thefire which in 1992 semi-destroyed the windsor castlemetaphor of a monarchy that was in danger of ending up in ashes.

In between, one can observe the carelessness of a teenager playing with the sailors on the deck of a ship together with his little sister Margaretlo rigorous and at the same time terrified gaze of a girl who, after having lost her beloved father prematurely, has to face the difficult task of wear the crownthe care of the hostess (and it does nothing if that house is Buckingham Palace) who must welcome excellent guests and looks out from the balustrade to check the situation before finishing preparing, theirony of a now experienced worker who before a official speech live jokes with the technicians.

A real tribute presented with one reverent and tender look at the same timedeferential towards the Sovereign and what she represents, loving towards the girl, the woman and today the grandmother (and great-grandmother) who has crossed the last century observing it from a unique position. And that in a few weeks not only the UK, but the whole world will be happy to celebrate.