On a rather damp Sunday evening I went down to the Cameo to watch the 30th anniversary screening of Orlando. I had wanted to watch Orlando for some time, having heard it been hailed as “a subversive history film”, “a feminist masterpiece”, “one of the most important queer films”, and more. However, whilst I expected Orlando to be a high and mighty art house piece, I was delighted to find that it was warm and lively, and moreover that it made me laugh and laugh.
Orlando is based on the 1928 novel of the same name by Virginia Woolf. Orlando (Tilda Swinton) is born in the Elizabethan era as a nobleman. The Queen herself becomes enamoured with them and bequeaths them a great house and land upon her death. They watch the centuries roll by, never ageing, and taking up different hobbies: politics, travelling, falling in love. Their overwhelming experience, however, is of loneliness. Orlando often drifts through their enormous house and gardens, which when framed in long-shot soar over them until Orlando is a forlorn speck. They seem more at peace when sent away as an ambassador to a country we only hear is “in the East”, yet when they wake up as a woman and can no longer hold the post due to their gender they return to England.
Orlando’s awakening in their new body was one of the most beautiful scenes of the whole film. Tilda Swinton seems to glimmer, shrouded in a golden light, as they regard their new body in the mirror. Speaking directly to the audience, they remark simply: “Same person, no difference at all. Just a different sex.” Orlando changes bodies with ease, there is no shock, or struggle, or turmoil. They find on their return to Georgian England that as a woman they no longer have a right to own property, but they continue to live and enjoy themselves. Director Sally Potter creates light comedy in their gender change, particularly when the civil servant that had met them as a man is astounded that they are now a woman. Tilda Swinton completely embodies the role of Orlando; Potter never imagined anyone else in it, for a good reason. Orlando is at once wise and naïve, young and old, feminine and masculine.
Sally Potter spoke of the difficulties in artfully compressing Woolf’s great book, but the film is perfectly paced. Despite spanning over 400 years, it never feels too fast. Historical periods are like chapters in a book, commencing with a thematic heading such as “love” or “society”. My favourite scene of all had to be the finale, which goes beyond Woolf’s text and takes the story right up to the 1990s in which it was filmed. It finishes on a completely joyous note by the tree Orlando sat next to in the opening scene 400 years before. Orlando is exuberant, exquisite, and expansive. Anyone can, and should, enjoy Orlando for its hilarious characters, for its lavish settings, but most of all for Swinton’s euphoric performance.
“Tilda Swinton 2012 Shankbone” by david_shankbone is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
