Director: Sally Potter
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Quentin Crisp, Billy Zane
Running Time: 93 minutes
Certificate: PG
Extras: Featurettes, Interview with Director Sally Potter, Audio Commentary with Sally Potter and Tilda Swinton, Select Scenes Commentary from Sally Potter, Theatrical Trailer
This HD re-release of the 1992 film ORLANDO is a competent enough technical achievement, with decent audio and video quality, but is let down by its source.
The tale of Orlando is a long one – 400 years long in fact – but on screen this translates to a mere 93 minutes. Nevertheless, the film’s poor pacing harkens right back to the epic duration of his (or her) journey, which sees the young prince, born into a life of nobility, apparently granted immortality by Queen Elizabeth I (played by Quentin Crisp in another gender-switching role; the only one that works – but more on that later). We then follow Orlando to the present day via a global journey which involves a changing of sex. Of course.
Tilda Swinton (the woman who eternally looks as if she’s just been told she has three weeks to live) is Orlando, both in male and female form, though the move is perhaps not the wisest choice. Swinton’s conviction as the male Orlando in the film’s first hour recalls the conviction of Jar Jar Binks as a credible addition to the STAR WARS universe. For those somehow unfamiliar with the character that ruined STAR WARS, allow me to spell it out for you: it just doesn’t work. Potter asks us to suspend our disbelief but the male interpretation of Orlando hardly persuades us to do so. We’re told in the opening lines of the film that it was the norm of men born into the time of Elizabeth I to aspire to feminine features – a flimsy excuse for a seeming lack of effort to convince us that Swinton can play a male.
When she (he?) does transform into a female – skewed reasoning and all – the change is intended to be purely physical, Orlando’s emotional and mental spirit transcending genders to live as both man and woman. But even this impact is lost; a nude Swinton embodying very little supposed change due to the failed dramatic impact of her performance as the male. It is actually the emotional differences that cut deepest, perhaps in opposition to intentions, as Orlando realises the true position of the female in society – and in the process embodies everything she loathed about the female form. In this sense the film jeopardises its message of Orlando’s removal from gender, but it has bigger problems still.
Potter’s constant need to break the fourth wall and have Orlando address the camera provides not only a few rather unsettling moments, but also serves to further dispel the suspension of disbelief past Swinton’s failure to convict as a man. It is in these moments that it is most apparent that Potter is attempting to inject a sense of humour into her script, but the effect is so diametrically opposed to the intention – a seemingly recurring theme – that it is actually this very attempt which becomes laughable.
Its few strengths lie in its cinematography and composure of the setting (outside of Orlando, of course) – the costumes and locales draw the viewer in, but again this is offset by the alienation we feel from Swinton’s character in the first hour, pulling us right back out again. It is this alienation which jeopardises not only the film’s entire thematic structure but also its ability to engage its audience – and on this front, causes the film to fail horrendously.
Perhaps it may make more sense when taken into account with the book – ORLANDO’s story is derived from, I’m told, a classic Virginia Woolf novel of a similar title – but many will not have read the 1928 story. And, therefore, it stands to reason that any interpretation of said source should be able to stand alone, and make sense (and have an impact) on its own. ORLANDO, it seems, does none of these things.
Extras: Interviews and featurettes dug up from the DVD release (though nothing is remastered in HD). The only notable extra is a new commentary from Potter and Swinton, looking back on the film 20 years later.
ORLANDO is available on Blu-ray from 6th August 2012.
