[1] The film centres on Pierre-Joseph (played by Antoine Pirotte in youth and by Creton himself in adulthood), a young man who takes a job as an apprentice gardener under the tutelage of Adrien (Pierre Barray) and Alberto (Vincent Barré), with the three men later becoming lovers in a throuple.
[2] The film features only limited direct dialogue among the main cast, with much of its dramatic exposition instead narrated in voice-over by actors Mathieu Amalric, Françoise Lebrun and Grégory Gadebois.
With a cast of mostly non-professional actors, it’s the latest work by agricultural worker and outsider artist Pierre Creton (“one of the world’s great cineaste-peasants”, as the presenter put it before the debut screening) who has made numerous films of varying lengths.
A Prince is unlikely to step far outside of the festival and ultra-niche streaming market but nevertheless is a film with a distinct, quiet voice, one that gently invites its audience into a rural world that is so far from the mainstream that it feels like another planet.
"[3] For Cineuropa, Fabien Lemercier wrote that "At times very confronting and underpinned by static shots cut through with rough humanity (broken up by a handful of breath-taking frames), the film speaks volumes, in fragmented fashion, about a kind of humanity where muted violence abounds and where physical love and manual labour act as medicinal plants and lucky charms.