OrlandoTilda Swinton, Billy Zane and Quentin Crisp star in this “hip, sexy and wickedly funny” film based on the gender-bending novel by Virginia Woolf. Swinton stars as Orlando, an English nobleman who defies the law of nature with surprising results. Immortal and highly imaginative, he undergoes a series of extraordinary transformations which humorously and hauntingly illustrate the eternal war between the sexes. Visually stunning and beautifully acted, Orlando is an intoxicating blend of romance, adventure and illusion.Breathtaking and practically nondiscursive, Sally Potter’s audacious Orlando overcomes some dodgy performances and a narrative structure that could most generously be described as “loose” to emerge as a haunting, discussion-provoking trans-historical and transsexual drama. Commanded never to age by Queen Elizabeth (played with surprisingly little camp by legendary cross-dresser Quentin Crisp), the title character becomes immortal; we then follow Orlando through 400 years of dreamlike British history. Midway through the film, Orlando changes genders–to Potter’s immense credit, the transformation is handled with little fanfare and no explanation. Tilda Swinton, in the lead role, is far more convincing as a woman than as a man, and even during the film’s latter half, her impassivity and lack of expression can be annoying. Potter encourages Swinton to play to the camera, and the resulting asides and glances askance can be amusing, but often seem purposeless, or even arch. Nevertheless, the willful idiosyncrasy and understatement of the film never quite capsize the project, and once you give yourself over to the filmmaker’s logic, the panoramic sweep of the cinematography (remarkable sets include an aristocratic skating party on the frozen Thames during the Great London Frost of 1603, a stunning tent-caravan in Central Asia, and countless fastidious boudoirs and interiors) will surely keep you enraptured. Orlando is no Merchant-Ivory production, no prissy, forgettable period piece; this film has teeth, and it may bite ferociously when you least expect it to. Based on, but scarcely resembling, the Virginia Woolf modernist classic of the same name. –Miles Bethany
Rating:  List Price: $ 19.94 Price: $ 12.77 Find More Dvd Products[/random] |
(out of 1 reviews)
Review by E. A Solinas for Orlando
Rating:
No lover in the world ever wrote a valentine more exquisite than Virginia Woolf’s tribute to her lover Vita Sackville-West, “Orlando.”
And few movie adaptations are as coyly, exquisitely lovely as the 1992 movie adapted from that book, a magical-realism tale about a perpetually youthful, charming hero/ine who traverses three centuries and both genders. Tilda Swinton has the right combination of androgyny and intelligence to perfectly embody Orlando, and director Sally Potter gilds and perfumes every set and costume.
Orlando (Swinton) was born a young aristocratic man in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, and when the dying monarch visited his home she became his new court favorite. She also bid him, “Do not fade, do not wither, do not grow old.”
And Orlando did as she said. With the death of the queen and his father, Orlando’s passionate, curious personality attracted many women — and during the Great Freeze he fell in love with Sasha, a mercurial Russian princess (Charlotte Valandrey) who enthralled him, but left him as he ice began to thaw. Bereft of true love, he devoted himself to poetry and entertainment.
But then he’s assigned to be an ambassador to Constantinople, and something strange happens — while a bloody revolution rages, he sleeps for a full week… and wakes newly metamorphosed into a woman. With the same mind and soul but a female body, Orlando sets out on a new life of poetry (befriending Pope!), sex and legality, stretching all the way to the twentieth century — when she finally finds peace.
“Orlando” is a treat for the senses, filled with showers of gold dust, luxuriant flowers, pale sunlight, golden sands, cities veiled in ice, dark rivers, snowy forests and mist-filled hedge mazes. It feels like Sally Potter took Woolf’s beautiful book and sprinkled it with roses, gold and crystals — and it just adds a suitably magical atmosphere to a already unreal story.
The center of all this is Swinton, who plays Orlando in both incarnations, and she’s utterly brilliant. Her androgynous features and slim body mean she can pass for both a man and a woman, and she manages to carry both genders off beautifully — she captures gangly boyish grace, sleek femininity, and a sort of chummy male attitude with equal skill.
And she captures Orlando’s elusive personality. Her Orlando is all puckish charm, sweetness and unleashed passion — even to the audience. While watching a street performance of “Othello,” he glances at the camera and whispers, “Terrific play!”, as if we’re trailing after him over the centuries.
And as I mentioned, Potter does a brilliant job with a very difficult book, sticking faithfully to most of Woolf’s novel and adding a shimmering, silken atmosphere to it. There are lots of beautiful scenes that could have stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting, and she deftly handles the passing centuries by having Orlando sprint through walls of mist. The ending is slightly different from Woolf’s novel, but it has the same pleasantly timeless, thoughtful quality — the only downside is that weird freaky angel thing. WHAT was that about?
Fortunately, the freaky angel thing is the one downside in “Orlando,” a timelessly sensual movie that perfectly highlights Tilda Swinton. Absolutely stunning.