JULY 23, 1993 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

ENTERTAINMENT

Orlando: 'A love poem to the essential self'

Reviewed by John Chaich

"This above all, to thine own self be true," William Shakespeare reminds us in his classic play Hamlet. But how do you remain true to yourself when you change sexes over a course of 400 years? Sally Potter's film Orlando answers this through the gender-journey of Orlando, a young man who lives through four centuries of sexism and two sexes in order to find and love the true self. Through cunning acting, mesmerizing production, and a subtle script, Orlando rises above how society defines men and women in order to reveal the essential qualities of humans.

Orlando begins in 1600 with Orlando as a young man and ends in the 1990s with Orlando as a woman. Orlando (played by British actress Tilda Swinton) is befriended by Queen Elizabeth I (none other than Queen Quentin Crisp himself) and granted an estate and title as long as he "never fades... never grows old."

Orlando plunges into the love of youth with a Russian princess, Sasha, only to be rejected by Sasha's realistic view of the geographic barriers between them. He turns to poetry for his wounded heart, but is ridiculed by his favorite poet. To the Far East he now ventures and learns that he is not willing to kill in order to be a "man." After a period of sleep, Master Orlando now becomes Madame Orlando.

In the salons of the Enlightenment, she learns firsthand the sexism women face when, because of her questionable sex, she is threatened with the loss of her estate unless she produces a child. After falling in love and into bed with an American revolutionary (Billy Zane), Orlando is transformed into a mother as the setting is transformed into what appears to be World War I. By 1990, Orlando had indeed maintained her youth, as does her child. She presents her life story to a publisher, and strides back to the estate on her motorcycle to raise her daughter.

Potter's film is based on Virginia Woolf's novel of the same name. Woolf wrote Orlando as an homage to her lover of twenty years, Vita Sackville-West. Like Orlando,

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Vita was born of a noble birth but could not inherit her family estate because of her sex. And like Orlando, West possessed a passion for love and life that drove her to maintain what she herself described as a "mental, spiritual" relationship with Woolf while remaining married to one understanding husband. But what the film shows us is the marriage, that is, love, to oneself that Orlando finds the film, Potter describes in Interview magazine, is a "love poem to the essential self."

Thematically, the script presents gender issues with just enough clarity so as to not underestimate your intelligence. Orlando as a young man physically met the "feminine ideal" of the 1600s; by the film's end, Orlando sees her daughter as having features that meet the current androgynous ideal. After the transformation, although Orlando announces that she is the "same person, no different at all, just a different sex," Potter lets neither Orlando nor the audience forget how society differentiates men and women. Accordingly, Orlando's refusal to be defined through anyone other than herself is a rough struggle through society's regulations. I was relieved then to see Orlando as the single, independent, motorcycle mama at the film's end, and left smirking at how no one in England noticed that neither her nor her child have aged in over 400 years!

Aesthetically, Potter's film work is intriguing. For each time period, a different color scheme is used: smoldering red and gold for the Elizabethan period, blue and silver in winter, mint and lilac for the Victorian period, and dull grays and tans for the 20th century. Color also affects lighting: particularly breathtaking are shots such as the midnight blue shadow on Orlando as he lies in bed heartbroken over Sasha, and the milky contrast of Swinton's pale skin next to Zane's tan.

Zane and Swinton also present an androgynous twist to the physical features of the characters. Zane's shoulder-length, freeflowing mane reminds us how a butch man could get away with the rugged mindset he plays, while Swinton's plain, smooth face

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The male Orlando, right, is taken under the wing of Queen Elizabeth I.

proves to be convincing as both a man and

a woman.

Crisp seems perfectly suited for the aura of his character as well. Although flat and unrevealing, Crisp's anti-method is how I picture the aging Elizabeth to be. Zane's revolutionary zest at times should have been left for the deodorant soap. His lines seemed to drool out of his mouth; perhaps he could have spared the patriotism and seductive coos for a more blunt approach in his conversations with Orlando. Swinton, on the other hand, convincingly handles both the male and female roles. Complementing the direct asides toward the camera is her quivering glare and half-cocked smile that projects an innocence and daring into both the masculine and feminine spectrums the character faces.

Jimmy Somerville fans will be pleased to

see the singer in two appearances, as a court singer and a post-modern angel. Somerville also co-wrote with Potter a track for the film, while Potter composed the classicalmeets-surreal-vocals soundtrack.

With its complementing cast, script, and scenery, Orlando succeeds in attacking the eternal attempts for gender enforcement. Sexual minorities can watch the film and parallel the gender influences to how much our sexuality does or does not influence our lives. Could the film, then, by cutting down gender lines, cut down sexuality lines as well? In this sense, Potter's Orlando makes us question cultural definitions-such as gender-while finding how each of us needs to define and empower ourselves.

Orlando is now playing at the Centrum Theatre on Coventry.

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