DVD of the Week: Orlando
Monday, July 28th by leinana
It took just one scene in Michael Clayton—the one where she suddenly realizes her world is crumbling around her—to make me a completely devoted fan of Tilda Swinton. Before then, I’d seen her in some things, but mostly heard about her when she’d show up somewhere wearing something crazy, but I didn’t realize what a gifted actress she truly is. So it was a pleasure to discover her in Orlando, where her character not only spans 400 years of history, but also changes gender from male to female. Now that is a role that few people could pull off.
The film starts in 1600, where Orlando is a young boy in the court of Queen Elizabeth. The Queen (played by Quentin Crisp, in one of many gender twists) orders Orlando not to grow old. Miraculously, he doesn’t, and lives the next 400 years without aging a day.
Admittedly, Swinton does look decidedly female and it is difficult to believe her as a boy, unlike say, Hillary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry. It doesn’t really matter, though, because the film (and book) is more concerned with the fluid and arbitrary distinctions in gender identity. What makes a “real man,” or a “real woman”?
Most interesting is when Orlando suddenly wakes up one day in the 1700s to find that he now inhabits a woman’s body. With a shrug, he declares, “Same person, no difference at all. Just a different sex.” However, despite having the same intellect and ability, as a woman she is corseted and dressed in the most restrictive clothing, while simultaneously stripped of her right to property and inheritance.
The most telling line in the film may be, “As a man, one has choices.” Women may have more choices now…but we’ve still got a way to go, Virginia.
Orlando (1993)
DVD Date of Release: August 1999
Based on Orlando by Virginia Woolf
