ORLANDO
A film review by Max Hoffmann
Copyright 1993 Max Hoffmann
Seen: Sat 5/9/93, SF's Castro Theatre, SF Film Festival Rating: 13 (yes!) (on a scale of 1->10)
A Gift! A transforming Experience! "If there's only one film you see this year...." A must see. Waiting for this one to come on video instead of viewing it in Kine's temple might be justifiable grounds for the death penalty!
Director Sally Potter received the SF's film festival's first bestowing of Satyajit Ray Lifetime achievement award (named after the great Bengali filmmaker). Potter has taken what many thought to be an unfilmable work of Virginia Woolf, and created what is destined to be an enduring classic, illuminated with the radiant presence of Tilda Swinton (EDWARD II, CARVAGGIO) in the lead. The film stretches the envelope that defines our arbitrary definitions of masculinity and femininity. A perfect union of sound and image, the film boasts an amazing soundtrack. Potter has also made an additional gift to the film world with the inclusion of a compelling, though brief, performance by Quentin Crisp; a fitting cap to his wonderfully chequered career.
General distribution in North America coming soon. The film caused a major stir at both the Venice and Toronto film festivals. (Currently showing on screens in the UK.)
In her brief Q/A session after the film and award ceremony (my quotes drawn to best of memory), Potter said she was drawn to this story of eternal youth and immortality "because of the twin plagues of AIDS and nuclear annihilation that we live under. After losing so many friends to AIDS and seeing the staggering loss of their voices, this film had to be made." Potter also affirmed her conviction "to create the same spiritual insights and transformations with cinema that masters like Mozart created with music." Upon viewing this film, you will agree that she has achieved that goal. Before seeing this film, you might be tempted to label Potter as a great "woman" film director. With this work, she has shed the triviality of gender. She is one of the world's greated film directors. Period.
Sally Potter has reaffirmed my hope that we need not always look to the past for enduring cinema. That films as great as the German silents of the 20s, as great as the works of Orson Welles are still being created.
In the rest of the review I quote directly from B. Ruby Rich's program notes:
"...ORLANDO is based upon the Virginia Woolf volume of the same name and tells the picaresque tale of a young man who lives through four centuries in rather unusual circumstances. He progresses at first in keeping with his upper-class origins, taking immortality in stride, until one day he wakes up, magically transformed into a woman. And so it goes: s/he continues on from the Victorian age to the present, exploring along the way questions of courtliness and beastliness, war and peace, politics and property, past and future -- and gender.
"ORLANDO's narrative progression is, if anything, post-modern. Lush operatic music surges on the soundtrack, the camera sweeps us off our feet, wry intertitles march us through history, and the incandescent Tilda Swinton (EDWARD II) marches us through genders in her embodiment of Orlando through the ages. No wonder audiences love it. Potter admits to being influenced by Soviet cinema (ORLANDO's cameraman Alexei Rodionov is Russian) and by Michael Powell (the great British director who championed her cause in the years before his death) but certainly Satyajit Ray could shine in her firmament of influences as well, for he would have recognized the beauty created here and the valor of its execution."
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