Remembering Princess Diana on her 26th death anniversary

It was on this date when the world lost Princess Diana. A woman full of wit, charm, beauty and intellect, Princess Diana's life has always fascinated filmmakers who have tried to put to perspective what went wrong for her to reach her ending so soon. On August 31, 1997, she met with a shocking accident that led to her tragic death. This August, we pick a few such narratives that you can revisit on the small screen.

This film, streaming on Amazon Prime, was based on a book by James Hewitt who during Princess Diana's lifetime and even after death, continued to profit from his alleged romance with her. He grew famous at her expense when in 1994, he worked with author Anna Pasternak to release the tell-all book Princess in Love . In 1996, just one year before Diana's death, a film based on the book was released. Directed by David Greene, it starred Robert Beck, Christopher Bowen and Julie Cox. The fact that Hewitt released another book on the affair after Diana's death and tried to sell her love letters shows the extent to which she continues to be exploited for fame and money even now.  

Netflix's The Crown had to make it to this list of shows and films based on the life of Diana as the show takes us through the history of British monarchy starting with the crowning of late Queen Elizabeth. The show has come under fire time and again for showing a lot of things that were often left unsaid. In season 4 and 5, the show started off with the chapter on Diana and Charles' romance (that never was) and their marriage that was always in shambles from the get-go. While Prince Charles has been depicted as a lost boy who was raised in an emotionally inert household  and was denied his true love, Diana often comes across as childish, manipulative, fame hungry and emotionally unstable. With superlative production values and aided by accomplished actors, this Netflix hit does however make for a compelling watch. Emma Corrin plays Diana in Season 4 and Elizabeth Debicki in Season 5.  

Directed by David Cohen, this documentary probes the unanswered questions around the death of Princess Diana when on an ill-fated night in August, while being chased by a posse of paparazzi, her car crashed into a concrete divider in a tunnel, took her life and that of Dodi Al Fayed and the driver Henri Paul. So who was to blame for this avoidable tragedy? Or a conspiracy nobody has been able to get to the bottom of? Watch this compelling documentary only on iTAP, to know if there are any answers or only questions that will continue to haunt us forever.  

Kristen Stewart aimed for top acting honours with this 2021 film and was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Critics' Choice Movie Award for her portrayal of Diana. Directed by Pablo Larraín from a screenplay by Steven Knight, this was a stark portrayal of the excess of luxury and privilege enjoyed by the royal family and its inability to relate with Diana on a human level. Diana's suffocation spirals into a final confrontation between her and the royal family  during the Christmas of 1991 when she decides to leave the Sandringham estate in Norfolk with her boys. Jack Farthing played Charles in an ensemble cast starring Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, and Sally Hawkins.

Based on Kate Snell's 2001 book, Diana: Her Last Love, this film too tries to imagine what it must have been like for Diana to reach out for love again and again only to be disillusioned repeatedly. The film delineates the supposed relationship  between Diana and Dr Hasnat Khan, a cardiologist of Pakistani origin during the last two years of her life. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, the film stars Noami Watts in a titular role of Diana and Naveen Andrews as Dr Hasnat and depicts how a brokenhearted princess after being turned down by Hasnat reaches out to Dodi Al Fayed for comfort only to then lose her life in a horrific car accident.