hmmm

“Orlando” is a character as confounding as he/she is interesting- a person who has somehow been bestowed with the gift of eternal youth and life, as well as the ability to experience the world from the point of view of both sexes.

Tilda Swinton plays the character, first as an androgynous nobleman who is gifted with land, title, and an enormous home by the first Queen Elizabeth (played by homosexual writer Quentin Crisp), but only if the young fop can actually keep from becoming old, withered, and eventually, dead. Most people would think the Queen off her rocker. But somehow Orlando rises to the challenge.

Throughout his life he meets a Russian princess who eventually ghosts him, tries writing poetry before a real poet tells him his life is too boring to be a poet, and various careers including a diplomat in the Middle East. Director Sally Potter moves the film along in 50 year intervals. At about the 150 year mark (I think), Orlando suddenly discovers he has breasts and is now a woman (but is otherwise no different). Where, as a man he is confounded by love and purpose, as a woman she is informed she has no right to hold property and will likely become a spinster if she does not marry and produce a son.

Swinton plays the dual role not as two sexes but as one ambiguous person who remains themselves even as changes occur, which is probably why the film is considered an early example of gender-nonconformity. Her feminine features are not blunted in the slightest and the only thing hiding it are the frilly, elegant male fashions of the time, yet she does seemingly have male appetites. And as a woman, Orlando doesn’t seem to have a problem with the corsets or making love to a man (Billy Zane makes a short appearance), just with the politics of being a woman.

Visually the film is rich in costume and set design- there is no denying that this is a beautifully mounted period piece that captures the changing centuries with fascinating realism. But merely pointing out the ways both genders have it hard seems a particularly shallow excuse for this movie to continue- and even the good points seem few and far between a film that eventually just meanders along. While the concept is interesting, it also makes you wonder what of Virginia Wolf’s novel was lost in the translation.