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Orlando

6.5

2,254

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Original title

Orlando

Year

1992

Running time

90 min.

Country

United Kingdom

Director

Sally Potter

Screenwriter

Sally Potter. Novel: Virginia Woolf

Cast

Music

David Motion, Sally Potter

Cinematography

Aleksei Rodionov

Producer

Co-production United Kingdom-Russia-Italy-France-Netherlands;

Genre

Fantasy. Drama | Transgender

Movie Groups

Virginia Woolf Adaptations

Synopsis

Based on the novel by Virginia Woolf, ORLANDO follows the witty, engaging story of the incredibly long-lived aristocratic poet, Orlando (Tilda Swinton), whose gender changes in the 18th Century as he/she lives through the Elizabethan era and into the Twentieth Century. Praised for his, and later her, beauty, and tortured by love and an obsession with epic poetry that began as a teenager, Orlando learns about politics, war, sex, society, and birth as a man and again as a woman.

Awards: 1993: Academy Awards: 2 Nominations for Oscar: Best Art Direction, Costume Design

1993: BAFTA Awards: Best Make-up & Hair. Nominated for Best Production Design

1993: Independent Spirit Awards: Nominated for Best Foreign Film

1993: Venice Film Festival: Audience Award

1993: European Film Awards: Nominated for Best Actress (Tilda Swinton)

1993: Sitges Film Festival: Best Movie

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Critics' reviews

"Potter's ironies, veering between the blunt and the exquisite, the oblique and the confrontational, expose the cruel hazards of nature and the perversities of culture"

Richard Brody: The New Yorker
"What it lacks in coherence it makes up for in sheer spectacle."

Johanna Steinmetz: Chicago Tribune
"See Orlando for its fabulous costumes, fascinating look at changing eras, and impressive performance by Tilda Swinton. Viewing this film for other reasons will almost certainly lead to a negative impression."

James Berardinelli: ReelViews
"Orlando provides exciting, wonderfully witty entertainment with glorious settings and costumes"

David Stratton: Variety
"The movie deconstructs Woolf in a smug, didactic way, using her whimsical fantasy as the vehicle for a belabored satirical assault upon the patriarchy."

Owen Gleiberman: Entertainment Weekly
"This ravishing and witty spectacle invades the mind through eyes that are dazzled without ever being anesthetized."

Vincent Canby: The New York Times
"Orlando would be unimaginable without Swinton in the title role. Her radiant, androgynous beauty makes every scene look like an Old Master portrait"

Joe Brown: The Washington Post
"This movie has a trance-inducing strangeness and Swinton is insouciantly magnetic at all times (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"

Peter Bradshaw: The Guardian

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User history

Orlando

1992

Sally Potter

6.5

(2,254)