Orlando, a poetic subversion
My name is Teresa Vieira, and I’m a white cis queer woman. I’ll be reviewing Orlando: My Political Biography, film directed by Paul B. Preciado, part of the 73rd Berlinale’s Encounter section.
These first two sentences are an attempt to connect as a critic, but also as a person, with the way in which the audience gets to know all the different Orlandos that are the focus of Preciado’s film: a multi-generational group of trans non-binary individuals. They present themselves with their own names but also as the performers of the role of Orlando. A sense of unity and community arises from this idea of shifting protagonists, but also a certain notion of continuous metamorphosis: something that builds up throughout the film and is reminiscent of what it actually means to be alive.
Following a linear narrative structure, accompanied or in reference to Virginia Woolf’s ‘Orlando’, we are guided through the film by different narrators, as they share their personal journeys. Untold stories and unrecognised lives exist and persist here in a space that for so long - and even until this day - has excluded them. The sense of narrative linearity is one of many examples of normative film language that is used in the film. Besides the linearity, tropes like the use of talking head shots with the individuals that are part of the film - something we can read as a more ‘conventional’ documentary style. Behind the scenes footage is also used, aiding the deconstruction of the artificial apparatus that comes with fictional cinematic representations, momentarily breaking the illusion and showing the audience how (moving) images can be - or are - made.
The formally conventional aspect of the film, is in fact, the perfect basis for a visual and conceptual expansion of the possibilities of film, representation and storytelling. As we move along moments in which there’s a sudden shift between a personal story and Woolf’s text, there’s an explicit proposal for active listening and participation from the audience. Looking at the film’s costume design, with ravishing modern punk-trashy tones, in a set of historically composed classical atmospheres that nonetheless might feel out of place, there’s an exciting clash between what is set to aesthetically define something. The audience can be moved by the appeal to try and figure out ‘what is beyond’ or ‘in between’ reality and fiction. This ultimately connects with the idea of disrupting, not only those specific binary cinematic poles, but also with the film’s urge to persistently denounce the need to break free from the duality of gender constructs and connect with true human essence: a spectrum of possibilities that need to be recognised.
One particular scene is set in an operation room in which Preciado - himself one Orlando - along with other Orlandos performs surgery on Woolf’s book. Images are meticulously removed from the original in order to place - or to sew - the ones that should have been there all along: images of trans lives and their stories. This is a vital and defining moment: not only in terms of what the film manages to do, but also in terms of what society still needs to achieve: the urgency of (re)writing ‘Humanstory’. Breaking away from the lines drawn by a cis-white-male-euro centric patriarchal discourse, smashing the binary empire - the system - from within.
As words, as well as films, matter, I want to end by acknowledging some of those this film was made with: Orlando and those around them. Oscar-Roza Miller, Janis Sahraoui, Liz Christin, Elios Levy, Victor Marzouk, Kori Ceballos, Vanasay Khamphommala, Ruben Rizza, Julia Postollec, Amir Baylly, Naëlle Dariya, Jenny Bel’Air, Emma Avena, Lillie, Arthur, Eleonore, La Bourette, Noam Iroual, Iris Crosnier, Clara Deshayes, Castiel Emery (Sasha), Fréderic Pierrot (Psychiatrist), Nathan Callot (Armory Salesman), Pierre et Gilles (Doctors), Tristana Gray Martyr (Goddess of Hormones), Le Filip (Goddess of Gender Fucking), Miss Drinks (Goddess of Insurrection), Tom Dekel (Receptionist), Virginie Despentes (Judge), Rilke & Pompom (Orlando's Dogs).