ELIZABETH: A PORTRAIT IN PART(S) – "The Crown is an idea, more than a person"

Movie Review by Sergio Martinez

The Queen in her
younger years

Roger Michel, the director of this film, just died last September. In a statement about the subject of this documentary, he had written: "She's a fiction... a function of our imagination... and yet she lives. And it's her apparent ordinariness and humility and her refusal to move with the times in her dress or her routine that makes her all the more a fixed point in a chaotic firmament." Of course, it takes a British subject like Michel to approach Queen Elizabeth with a balance of admiration, some slightly critical distance, and a dose of humour in a good British tradition.

The timing is the right one. Elizabeth II, at age 96, is now celebrating her 70th year on the throne. She has been the longest-serving monarch in British history, and as the movie makes it clear: "She is the longest-serving female head of state in the history of the world, the world's oldest living monarch, the longest-reigning current monarch, and the oldest and longest-serving current head of state" a capacity that also applies to Canada and other Commonwealth nations.

Spectacular displays like this may offend some,
but still for others she is the object of great adoration

In fact, a large part of the movie focuses on the many travels the Queen has taken to what at one point were the realms of the Empire "where the sun never set". All of that grand imperial past is now gone. However, Elizabeth, who, as sovereign, has presided over the dismantling of the rest of that empire in Africa and the Caribbean mainly, still seems interested in the vicissitudes experienced by those countries. Her dedication to the Commonwealth is well documented in the film.

Elizabeth in her 70th year as monarch

Structured as an archival documentary, the director resorted to a variety of material on the Queen herself, including some of the time when she was a little girl and when, as a young volunteer, she was driving an ambulance during the war. However, that is not the only material we find in the movie. References to pop culture are very much present, from scenes when The Beatles were knighted, to James Bond and the impersonation of Elizabeth at the opening of the 2012 London Olympics, to small clips of the beautiful Disney version of Peter Pan, where the character flies to Wendy's house and shares with the audience his view of London. The Peter Pan movie was made the same year of Elizabeth's coronation. Always in the area of pop culture, there are references to how for many Britons, she is a sort of mother, a protector of the collective hearth, even though, in a political sense, her role is minimal.

"The Crown is an idea, more than a person"
Queen Elizabeth

However, there she is, the object of adoration to many, souvenir shops full of all kinds of memorabilia which people seem anxious to buy. Although Queen Elizabeth personally enjoys a great deal of popularity, she still emphasized the institution's value. As she says during one of her public engagements: "The Crown is an idea, more than a person." It might be, but from what this movie tells us, her long presence as head of state has undoubtedly marked a whole era.

In theatres, May 24. Duration 89 min.