AmateurMovieReviews.com

Review by Garnet Brooks

This lovely period film received an Oscar nomination when it was first released in the early 1990's. Its director is Sally Potter who also wrote the screen adaptation. It is based on the book written by Virginia Wolf, one of the stream-of-consciousness Bloomsbury writers. The film's stars are Tilda Swinton and Billy Zane. I suppose this would be considered an art film. It is available on DVD.

The story follows Orlando who is an English nobleman. We first see him in 1600, the Elizabethan era, and he is noticed by the aging queen. She gives him some advice: just don't grow old. Elizabeth is daunting in her white face powder, red wig and enveloping dresses. Apparently no one dared disobey her. Orlando, a male, is played by Swinton but it is impossible to hide the femininity in period male costume. This sort of thing is hard to pull off in film. Orlando falls in love with a Russian woman and his heart is broken.

In 1650, Orlando is still a youth having aged not at all. He turns to poetry to comfort himself. He has resources that others do not have. Orlando gives his patronage to a great man who then trifles with Orlando, spends his money unwisely and mocks his patron in print. Orlando is disillusioned by the writing life.

In 1700, Orlando takes himself off to desert lands as an ambassador. He becomes enamored of the Ottoman way of life and is a true friend to the people he meets there. Conflicts there place him in a precarious position. Orlando almost dies and mid-film he awakes to find he is now a woman. She then remarks that she is really just the same after all, only of a different sex. She goes veiled into the desert for a time and comes back to England to find that her legal status is now murky. People both notice and do not notice the change of sex and they find ways to explain it away. Increasingly the hold on the estate is disputed.

In 1750, Orlando finds herself on the verge of losing the estate. A suitor emerges and gives her an offer of marriage. This would give her security but she refuses. She becomes enamored instead of a literary salon of the age and meets literary giant of the time like Addison and Johnson. Their attitudes toward her gender seem rather offensive to her. Again she is put off by this world and looks for meaning elsewhere.

In 1850, Orlando still has not aged a bit. She falls in love with one of the "wild" romantics of that time who model themselves after Lord Byron but he cannot stay with her and goes off on his stallion presumably to meet his death in the service of his particular grand cause.

Alone once more, Orlando is told by Victorian lawyers that she must have a male heir or lose the estate for good. She searches for meaning and satisfaction elsewhere yet again. World wars come and go and Orlando becomes a twentieth century woman turning novelist and having a girl baby by herself.

Orlando gets herself a motorcycle and visits the house she has lost with her young daughter. They take off on the motorcycle to find themselves in modern London. Here Orlando blends into Everywoman. She is "no longer trapped by destiny."

This film is, because of its nature as film, not able to reflect a stream-of-consciousness technique. It seems to be magical realism if I understand the concept. Really only two magical things happen: Orlando does not age and Orlando changes sexes. People pretend not to notice that these events are outside the scope of reality as we usually understand it. Otherwise it operates according to the tenants of realism. It is also a good example of how magical realism is not that different from old fashioned allegory. Everyman or Everywoman, Orlando marches down the ages and into myth.

While art films are not to everybody's taste, many people might like this film. It is a story about feminist issues but without being dogmatic or overt in presenting them. Wolf who wrote in the early 1900's clearly struggled with these issues. This film version manages to be very engaging. The period sets and costumes are magnificent.