Orlando: My Political Biography is in selected cinemas now
In an act of scheduling that is either fortuitous or canny, this documentary arrives the week that politicians have been debating the future of trans rights leading up to the general election. However, trans-themed documentary Orlando: My Political Biography looks to the literature of the past rather than the politics of the future to make its case.
Transgender filmmaker Paul B. Preciado uses Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography as a jumping off point for a visual essay about identity, politics, and history. He collaborates with over twenty transgender people who play versions of Orlando (and one for Woolf herself), in short segments that talk about transition and its difficulties.
Feeling like an art piece rather than anything with a linear narrative, there’s a lot of passion behind Preciado’s work. In an opening monologue, he appreciates the influence the character of Orlando has had on gender diverse people, but rages against the simplicity of Orlando’s transition (essentially going to bed a man, and waking a woman).
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Each section, inspired by scenes in Woolf’s book, either dramatically or comedically portrays the transgender and non-binary experience, tying Orlando to lives that are happening here and now. At times it’s playful, and other times filled with rage. The scenes vary wildly, incorporating everything from farce to disco to make their points, while everyone (including the director’s dog) is given a ruff as a nod to the Elizabethan era the story is set in.
On the other side of the spectrum, a scene set in a doctor’s office has a particular venom to it, particularly to those who are “Orlandos” themselves. It’s also sad to see the participants, many of whom are quite young, hold such heaviness as they find parallels with Woolf’s protagonist.
Still, it’s remarkable how Preciado weaves fact and fiction together, in a loving deconstruction that owes a great deal to arthouse filmmakers like Pedro Almodovar and Jean-Luc Godard. More artistic than political, this film gives transgender people a voice, something woefully absent from a lot of discourse.
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