Attorneys of Orlando

Orlando (Biblioteca De Autor) (Spanish Edition)

Description

A young man at the court of Queen Elizabeth I transforms, over the centuries, into a woman in the bustle and diversion of the 1920s.

Reviews

Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-08-17
Summary: "2010 version: Unique, fascinating, humorous and just a pleasure to watch."

A genderbending film that pays its respect to Virgina Woolf's original work. Sensually witty and highly enjoyable!

English author, essayist, publisher Virginia Woolf, was a key figure in modernist literature. As a woman who was inspired by avante garde which influenced her original work, she was a woman who was not only intellectual but a woman who was an individual that walked the beat of her own drum. From being married to a man and having an affair with aristocrat and English author/poet Vita Sackville-West.

In 1928, Virginia Woolf wrote a semi-biographical novel based on the life of Vita titled "Orlando". One of Woolf's most accessible novels and eventually a novel that would receive its film adaptation in 2008 courtesy of writer/director Sally Potter ("The Tango Lesson", "The London Story", "The Gold Diggers"). The film would go on to receive a 1992 Academy Award nomination for Costume Design and Production Design.

VIDEO:

"Orlando" is presented in 1:85:1 anamorphic widescreen. For a 1992 film, the latest DVD release for "Orlando" is not a huge improvement over its 1999 DVD release. I know one of the problems that some people had with the original release was the amount of spotting and that the colors look a bit muted.

I personally haven't seen the 1999 DVD release but with this 2010 DVD release, colors such as reds, browns and blacks are more pronounced. There are some parts where colors do look muted and some areas looking a bit faded. But I would imagine it's due to the film stock used around that time. The film does manage to contain a god amount of grain but also has its share of low-light noise. I did see some occasional dust while viewing but it was not plentiful. Also, because there are a good number of lengthy special features included with the film on one DVD, I imagine that there would have to be some compromising in terms of picture quality.

But as for the difference between the two DVD releases when it comes to picture quality, although I haven't seen the 1993 DVD, with DVD authoring having changed so much in the last decade that I feel confident that this 2010 DVD release of "Orlando" is much better than the previous DVD release nearly eleven years ago.

I will say that with Sony Pictures Classics usually doing simultaneous releases for Blu-ray and DVD, I am surprised that "Orlando" is only being given a DVD release, because this is one film I would have loved to see an HD upgrade.

AUDIO:

"Orlando" is presented in English Dolby Surround. The film is primarily center and front channel driven and for the most part, is mostly all dialogue. There is a scene in which Orlando goes through a field where bombs are exploding and that is probably the major extent of action-based sequences. But for the most part, dialogue is clear and the music and ambiance sounds do come clear through the front channels but I don't really recall the surround channels or LFE being utilized all that much.

Subtitles are in English and English SDH.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

"Orlando" comes with the following special features:

* Select Scenes Commentary with Director Sally Potter - (10:17) Writer/Director Sally Potter does commentary for select scenes from the film. The audio commentary is more like an interview with Sally Potter who explains why she made "Orlando" into a film.
* Orlando Goes to Russia - (32:57) A documentary featuring Sally Potter going to Russia to film the 1610 time period for "Orlando". This featurette is a video diary of producer Christopher Sheppard documenting Sally Potter and producers wanting to film in Russia and how the negotiations took place during the time of when Russia had just allowed film companies to start filming in their country and the two years of research and rounds of negotiations in trying to get parts of the film shot in Russia and the challenges the film crew had in trying to get the film shot in Russia.
* Orlando in Uzbekistan - (51:53) A featurette about shooting in Uzbekistan and the challenges that arose during the filming in Uzbekistan and the expectancy of any Western company coming into the country to shoot a film is loaded with a lot of money and thus, people abandoning the country and wanting to renegotiate for more money from the producers and thus halting the film production.
* Jimmy Was An Angel - (8:03) A featurette about a singer Jimmy Sommerville (of Bronski Beat and the Communards) who played an angel in the film "Orlando" and a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of that scene.
* Venice Film Festival Press Conference - (23:08) Featuring the press conference that took place after the screening of "Orlando" at the "Venice International Film Festival 1992.
* An Interview with Sally Potter - (13:21) Featuring an interview with Sally Potter at the "Venice International Film Festival 1992. Potter talks about why she chose to do an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's "Orlando".
* Theatrical Trailer - (1:16) The original theatrical trailer for the film.

JUDGMENT CALL:

Passion. Immortality. The chance to experience life differently and how the experience is everchanging.

Virginia Woolf's "Orlando", a semi-biographical novel based on Vita Sackville-West, the woman that Woolf was intimate with, is truly a unique cinema experience and an interesting look at the treatment of women and their position in society during that era.

Although written in a way in which many people at the time were unaware that this book was a semi-biography, I tend to look at this film (as based on the novel) as a story that is quite liberating. And similar to how Orlando is shown through different time periods, I often wonder how people have perceived Woolf's most accessible novel during the various decades, especially the changes in how women are treated in business, politics and society but also to see how people perceived the character of Orlando and having had to experience life as a man and a woman and thus reading a book that does deal with sexual tendencies.

I believe that Woolf who wrote the story in 1928 as a love letter to Vita broke new boundaries as a modernist but also in crafting a story that is fiction/non-fiction and writing without any constraints.

All this is quite intriguing and to see how the very passionate writer/director Sally Potter giving great care in the adaptation of the novel and being persistent in trying to capture that feel and look by traveling to different countries and doing the necessary research in several years and making it happen. Again, I haven't read the original book but having read reviews of people who have and feeling that Woolf did a remarkable job in her screenplay should show you how dedicated Potter and her producers were in bringing "Orlando" to life.

Let me first tell you how remarkable actress Tilda Swinton was in this film. To play an androgynous man and later a woman who experiences a lifetime of changes due to her immortality but to keep this straight face on and yet able to quickly deliver these humorous one-liners and seeing her react to the various characters around her was quite entertaining. Billy Zane did a great job playing Shelmerdine and although short roles, Quentin Crisp as Queen Ellizabeth I and Jimmy Sommerville as an angel were well-done and brought a not-so-serious but subtle yet farcical feel to the overall film.

As previously mentioned, I didn't own the 1999 DVD of "Orlando" but for those who have been wanting this film on DVD, you get a good number of special features included. I definitely respected Sally Potters determination in making this film after watching these featurettes and knowing the challenges she and the producers had faced in filming in Russia and Uzbekistan. There is a good amount of lengthy features included, the 2010 special edition DVD release has over 2 hours of never-before-seen extra footage (comparing to the 1999 DVD release, I see that four special features were included in the 1999 release but have a shorter duration than what is presented in the 2010 version).

Overall, "Orlando" was an enjoyable film and I can see how anyone watching this film would see the incredible potential of actress Tilda Swinton. Many have criticized the actress of her role as a man as unbelievable. But my focus was not on the portrayal of man but the evolution of a person who has been both man and woman and trying to adjust to the changes that Orlando must face in a variety of time periods to the person's own immortality.

The film captures your attention due to the detail that went into the costume and production design but its the witty one liners that come out of Orlando's mouth that I found humorous. But it's the political satire of the film that I find most intriguing and Sally Potter did a great job in capturing that in her film. "Orlando" is a film that is entertaining, humorous and truly captivating. Definitely recommended.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-07-08
Summary: "... because this is England, everyone pretends not to notice"

No lover in the world ever wrote a valentine more exquisite than Virginia Woolf's tribute to her lover Vita Sackville-West, "Orlando."

And few movie adaptations are as coyly, exquisitely lovely as the 1992 movie adapted from that book, a magical-realism tale about a perpetually youthful, charming hero/ine who traverses three centuries and both genders. Tilda Swinton has the right combination of androgyny and intelligence to perfectly embody Orlando, and director Sally Potter gilds and perfumes every set and costume.

Orlando (Swinton) was born a young aristocratic man in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, and when the dying monarch visited his home she became his new court favorite. She also bid him, "Do not fade, do not wither, do not grow old."

And Orlando did as she said. With the death of the queen and his father, Orlando's passionate, curious personality attracted many women -- and during the Great Freeze he fell in love with Sasha, a mercurial Russian princess (Charlotte Valandrey) who enthralled him, but left him as he ice began to thaw. Bereft of true love, he devoted himself to poetry and entertainment.

But then he's assigned to be an ambassador to Constantinople, and something strange happens -- while a bloody revolution rages, he sleeps for a full week... and wakes newly metamorphosed into a woman. With the same mind and soul but a female body, Orlando sets out on a new life of poetry (befriending Pope!), sex and legality, stretching all the way to the twentieth century -- when she finally finds peace.

"Orlando" is a treat for the senses, filled with showers of gold dust, luxuriant flowers, pale sunlight, golden sands, cities veiled in ice, dark rivers, snowy forests and mist-filled hedge mazes. It feels like Sally Potter took Woolf's beautiful book and sprinkled it with roses, gold and crystals -- and it just adds a suitably magical atmosphere to a already unreal story.

The center of all this is Swinton, who plays Orlando in both incarnations, and she's utterly brilliant. Her androgynous features and slim body mean she can pass for both a man and a woman, and she manages to carry both genders off beautifully -- she captures gangly boyish grace, sleek femininity, and a sort of chummy male attitude with equal skill.

And she captures Orlando's elusive personality. Her Orlando is all puckish charm, sweetness and unleashed passion -- even to the audience. While watching a street performance of "Othello," he glances at the camera and whispers, "Terrific play!", as if we're trailing after him over the centuries.

And as I mentioned, Potter does a brilliant job with a very difficult book, sticking faithfully to most of Woolf's novel and adding a shimmering, silken atmosphere to it. There are lots of beautiful scenes that could have stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting, and she deftly handles the passing centuries by having Orlando sprint through walls of mist. The ending is slightly different from Woolf's novel, but it has the same pleasantly timeless, thoughtful quality -- the only downside is that weird freaky angel thing. WHAT was that about?

Fortunately, the freaky angel thing is the one downside in "Orlando," a timelessly sensual movie that perfectly highlights Tilda Swinton. Absolutely stunning.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-04-25
Summary: "ORLANDO: A Film that Defies Categorization"

ORLANDO is not one of Virginia Woolf's better known novels, and with good reason. In its gender-bending themes, one is never quite sure what to make of it. Director Sally Potter took this amorphous quality and transferred it to the screen by re-writing both script and plot until the film and the book have long since parted company. What remains is a cinematic masterpiece that either dares the viewer to comprehend it or defies him. In the real world, one might think that anyone who was publically immortal might have world reknown or anyone who changed genders in an age bereft of transgender surgery might be equally famed. And certainly one who did both would be a superstar in any age. But in Potter's view of England that spans four centuries from 1600 to 2000 the general public seems to take such astonishing news in stride, and that may be the point. We are not supposed to take ORLANDO under any prism of realism nor are we meant to endure a willing suspension of belief. Rather, Potter intends us to view the panorama of English history in much the same dream like manner that we excercise as we accompany Alice down the rabbit hole.

Tilda Swinton as the androgynous Orlando appears as a feminine-looking male in the court of Queen Elizabeth, herself played by the cross dressing Quentin Crisp. It calls for some blunting of the imagination for the viewer to accept Orlando as a male since he truly looks like a female in male drag. One day, the Queen commands Orlando, as her boy toy favorite, never to age. And magically his biological clock ceases ticking. No explanation other than her royal prerogative is given and none is needed. Orlando has normal sexual desires for a man. He falls heavily for the lovely daughter of a Russian ambassador who jilts him, thereby repeating Orlando's similar rejection of an English woman chosen to be his betrothed. The decades and centuries pass and no one seems to notice the miracle in their midst. There are many splendid scenes of architecture that captivate the eye, but these are distractions from the real business at hand--to present a multi-gender view of English history. After two centuries, Orlando transforms into a woman, again magically, again illogically. From this vantage she can expatiate on a view of a male-dominant society symbolized by Pope, Addison, and Swift, all of whom come across as male chauvinistic piggies of the worst sort. More decades pass, but the only changes seem to be in technology and architecture. Other characters enter and exit with little impact on Orlando. Billy Zane is the exception as he comes THIS close to convincing her to accompany him on his travels to America.

While all this time spanning action occurs, Swinton as Orlando has the difficult task of remaining gender neutral in her capacity as the film's center. Her Orlando shows very little emotion. Instead she reveals her inner thoughts in direct asides to the camera, thus intensifying in the viewer that what is being seen is a fiction. We never know what drives Orlando to wish to live so long. She wants a child and she has one but that adds no dimension to her part. ORLANDO ultimately emerges as a film that entertains even as it makes no pretense as to how or why.

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Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2010-02-12
Summary: "Disapointing"

Orlando was a man and then an ageless woman who gave birth. It jumped about and was very confusing. I thought it quite rediculous and unbelievable.

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Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2009-09-05
Summary: "Good Movie, Bad Copy"

Orlando is a very good movie, visually stunning and well acted. The copy I received was plagued with dark spots, poor sound, and occasional freeze frames -- almost as if it was copied from a copyrighted original.The price was cheap (about $10.00 US); I gues you get what you paid for.