Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Erica Derrick
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
jovana-13676
"Orlando" is a truly magnificent book, and this is a magnificent adaptation of a magnificent book. When I was at the Women's Studies, there was a whole course dedicated exclusively to Virginia Woolf. We had an 'expert' professor who told us that "Virginia Woolf went away from religion." I imagined Virginia in a boat, rowing forever into the sunset. It sounded exciting, but I wanted to know what happened next, or how do we see it in her work. I never got an answer. After reading "Orlando" myself, I dismissed the professor's notion as her own fabrication. To me, "Orlando" is a myth, a folktale, and folktales come from religion. It just happened that at the same time when I was reading "Orlando", I found Vladimir Propp's "Morphology of the Folk Tale" on my landlord's book shelf, went downstairs to buy some chips and mineral water and bought Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm (2005) DVD in the store. So, I had an epiphany. "Orlando" has a folktale pattern, where the hero transforms and adopts female attributes in order to survive the folktale - which is life. I thought it would be very complicated to show this on film, but they made it by simply sticking to Orlando's look. The costume plays the most important role in this film and every nuance is expressed through costume - early baroque is not the same as rococo. And the costume designers know it very well. They will add or remove the layers to adjust the costume, sticking to historical facts, but also exaggerating some details. The passing of time is thus almost unnoticeable. Tilda Swinton is perfectly cast as Orlando, not only because of her androgynous looks, but because she is so intelligent and has great instincts - she understands what this story is about and how it should be told. This book/film may be misused to push the transgender agenda, but it's about nature. The human nature through history. Or, how sexes were looked or frowned upon in different historical moments. And every one of us is both male and female. We need both sides. "Orlando" is not a sex change flick, but a deep analysis of our deepest self and collective unconscious, as well. I love it that it's done through fashion.
gavin6942
Young nobleman Orlando (Tilda Swinton) is commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to stay forever young. Miraculously, he does just that. The film follows him as he moves through several centuries of British history, experiencing a variety of lives and relationships along the way, and even changing sex.We start out with some interesting ice skating, a hobby I was not aware had existed in the 1600s (though Wikipedia informs me it most certainly did). And from there we see Orlando go through life learning of poetry, politics and more.I found this film difficult because of the casting. Now, had I seen it in 1992, the transformation from male to female might have been more pronounced. But seeing it in 2014, Swinton is now a much bigger name, and it was obvious from the first frame that the actor was female. Was this intentional? Maybe, but I think not.
chuck-526
One of the best films I have ever seen! I followed a rather obscure reference to an indie film I'd never heard of, and found this fantastic movie. It captures the spirit and the magical realism of Virginia Woolf's novel. Every scene brings up the same question: is this ironic satire, or absurdist black comedy, or a tweaking of conventions, or just plain bizarre? And always the answer turns out to be the same: _all_ of the above ...and all at the same time too.Describing briefly what it's about by saying it's about a person who lives 400 years, half as a man and half as a woman, mostly misses the mark. Saying it's about the history of England, from both the vantage point of an inside participant and the vantage point of an outside observer, gets a little closer. I didn't find any discernible "narrative arc", but it doesn't feel like a collection of disconnected scenes either. It's one of the few more-or-less mainstream films where the label "postmodernist" seems accurate and even helpful.If you wait for the "meaning scene" (or even for a cogent explanation of much of anything) you'll just keep waiting. It's subtler than that. A constant subtext of ambiguous gender and sexuality runs through it, so much so that the role of the first Queen Elizabeth is acted by a famous drag queen, and the film is bracketed by the falsetto singing of a former member of the Bronski Beat, at the beginning as the queen's herald and at the end as a rather fake-looking angel.The photography, sets, music, and costumes are all out of this world. It's so detailed that Tilda Swinton wears a different color of contact lenses in each period. It would be an aesthetic experience even if you didn't understand a word of English. Nothing is exactly similar, but the first films that came to my mind are "Barry Lyndon", "Zelig", "A Single Man", "The Tree of Life", and the recent "Much Ado About Nothing".A couple decades old and never widely released, it's been remastered and is easier to find than ever in 2013.
Red_Identity
Tilda Swinton, like always, is mesmerizing here, simply captivating. I did see the film just for her, and she doesn't disappoint (but really, when has she). The film itself also has a very moody tone, and it's pretty great in its first act. Although I don't think it's a drastic step down in the last two acts, it does finally settle on just being very good. But really, Swinton owns this. In fact, Swinton has the knack to be able to convey so much with her one still expression, one that can make us feel and understand what her characters are feeling. She's amazing here, and she's one of the best actresses alive. Let's just be grateful we have her.
