Orlando

Rating:
Summary: Sign of the Times
Review: While Virginia Woolf's 'Orlando' was found, by some readers, to be both long-winded and unbelievable, the movie version is, as a whole, a satire of the novel. The director has taken liberties galore with the original tale (Jimmy Sommerville as a disco queen obviously never figured in the original draft) but despite that, 'Orlando' turns out to be one of the better book-to-film adaptations I have seen, and as much as I hate to say it, I found it to be even better than the book. The novel lacked a certain life, and though Woolf did her best to enliven things up (the latter half of the work was dreary and pointless), Sally Potter, the director, strings things in such a fashion, that the end of the film is a) nothing like the book and b) lifts the movie to higher heights. We owe the way this film works to Tilda Swinton of course, the English actress who made a stunning impression with this film and then left us high and dry by shunning mainstream production altogether.

Other reviews will tell you what 'Orlando' is all about. What I wanted to dwell on are the qualities of the film that make it outstanding. There are noticeable flaws, of course, because the movie doesnt flow together as a consolidated piece. It is broken and jarring in places - a collection of amusing vignettes strung together - but at the end of two hours, 'Orlando' comes together unlike many a film of its genre. For a film of this sort to make an impact on the audience, it must first goad the audience into leaving their sense of probability behind. Orlando's most defining moment comes when he lies himself down and arises a woman - breasts and all. I know not of any person in modern history who has altered their sex simply by will, and hence could not accept this shift in gender totally, yet this is one of the most gripping sequences in the film. Its also relieving because Tilda Swinton can finally play herself and get rid of that phony masculine accent.

Orlando still lives, according to the movie, so that would make him/her about 420 years old at the moment. The focus of the film is not so much the years that Orlando lives through, but rather the lessons she learns along the way. Why, for instance, did the Lord Orlando decide to 'become' a woman? Was this of his own choosing? Orlando's bitter experiences with war and death make him question his own masculinity, or one would suppose, as it is just after this that he changes his sex. But both as a man and as a woman, Orlando faces rejection. As a man, he is spurned by a Russian ambassodress, and as a woman, she involves herself in a torrid affair (with some of the most thoughtful dialogue) with Billy Zane, and he leaves her for America almost immediately. Pregnant, and doomed to be a 'spinster', Orlando survives World War I and II and is left with child when the film ends. This is all grossly improbable, but it works.

Tilda Swinton's direct camera glances are at first amusing, but I suppose they do add a sort of artistic touch to the proceedings. The final moments of the film benefit hugely from Tilda's beatific gaze, assuring the film of instant classic status, and making 'Orlando' one of the most thoughtful transgender films ever made. This is art.

Rating:
Summary: Orlando as Everyman
Review: Woolf's Orlando is the story of a young nobleman of the Elizabethan Age, who by a mysterious quirk of Fate is allowed to experience the pains and privileges of both genders. The fascinating story is at times poetic, at times verbose, but always fascinating. The reader witnesses Orlando's transformation from a sixteenth-century man to a twentieth-century woman; by employing the stream-of-consciousness technique, the androgynous protagonist's secret dilemmas and longings are clearly enunciated. By the conclusion of the novel, Woolf's stance on the matter of gender is obvious: whether the trappings of Orlando be taffeta or leather, the personality is the same.

Woolf wrote during a period which did much to shun the traditional sex-barriers; rather than joining the hoardes of suffragettes or their opposing army of conservatives, she crafted a philosophy which effortlessly combined the two. Women are not superior to men, nor are they weaker; both sexes are inherently equal; more than that, one cannot differentiate between the two. We are the same. We are all members of humanity, and that bond is enough to surpass the role played by gender. Woolf is begging us not to label our neighbor as a "man" (complete with all that word connotes), for to do so would be to divide mankind with an imaginary line. Look to yourself and your friends merely as a person, for the soul can never change.