Orlando (DVD, 1997, Closed Captioned; Subtitled in French and Spanish)

Arguably the greatest British novelist of the 20th century, Virginia Woolf, who invented "stream of consciousness" writing, composed the 1928 novel "Orlando" upon which director Sally Potter's exotic film is based.

Woolf's novel was written for & about a famous crossdressing British heiress, poet, gardener, feminist, wife & mother; yet bisexual lover to many--Vita Sackville-West, who was one of Woolf's closest friends & perhaps her lover.
Sackville-West's son, Nigel Nicholson, called Woolf's novel "Orlando," "the longest lover letter in the world." From Virginia to Vita.

The narrator says of Orlando: "She's lived for 400 years & hardly aged a day; but, because this is England, everyone pretends not to notice." It's Woolf's biting satirical commentary on Victorian society, from a woman's perspective who, though owning her own publishing house & a truly great writer, was nevertheless oppressed by gender inequality. One of the giant points Woolf contends with is Vita Sackville-West was an only child born into a 600 room castle; but, solely because she was a woman, she could not inherit it.

The time span of the life of Orlando (Tilda Swinton) is from the 16th to the 20th century. Orlando starts out as a man to whom Queen Elizabeth I (Quentin Crisp) promises her estate as long as 'he' never ages. Changing sex in the 18th century, 'she' learns that women are underprivileged. Especially when Orlando looses her property, since women were not allowed to own estates. Woolf's dialogue on this biographical point is the height of satire:

First Official: One, you are legally dead & therefore cannot hold any property whatsoever.
Orlando: Ah. Fine.
First Official: Two, you are now a female.
Second Official: Which amounts to much the same thing.

Woolf & Sackville-West were of similar minds about gender inequality. Woolf rebels against it as Sackville-West did in real life by portraying Orlando as outraged, transgender & bisexual. Both feminist writers were profoundly critical of Victorian society's imperialism. So Woolf's characters bring that out; for example, through this single line uttered by the The Kahn (Lothaire Bluteau): "It has been said to me that the English make a habit of collecting... countries."

Now a solo performer, Jimmy Somerville (who plays an angel singing in falsetto in the 16th & 18th centuries) used to be a singer for Bronski Beat & the Communards in the 1980's. Sally Potter, aside from directing, also did the vocals for the musical score that she co-wrote. The music is fascinating, exotic & indescribable.

Potter's movie captures the key points of Woolf's novel by being filled with sexually dubious characters & relationships. For instance, Quentin Crisp plays a marvelous Queen; Charlotte Valandrey plays Princess Sasha, a young woman who dresses as a man; Lothaire Bluteau as The Khan has a friendship with Orlando that is highly suggestive of gay flirtations between 2 men. Jimmy Sommerville's voice is the epitome of queerness & dressed as an angel couldn't be more fey if he tried!

Since I'd critiqued Woolf's "Orlando" text in college, when the movie came out in the summer of 1993, I found it so true to Woolf's quick witted tones of political satire that I couldn't stop myself from cracking up with laughter out loud in the theatre. If a movie goer doesn't know the true story of both the biographer's & the subject's lives, they won't get the scathing political points Woolf's made. Brilliantly, at that!