“Why don’t you write your biography?” “Because fucking Virginia Woolf wrote my biography in 1928.”

glad i went to see this!! the format especially is so wonderful, mixing documentary and fiction and texts from a book written in 1928 with statements and stories from real people living today. doesn’t just question the gender binary, but also the binary of biography vs fiction and presents such a personal, emotional and yet playful way of engaging with orlando. 

the gender non-specific urge to kiss a tree

dangerous for a single work of art to mix the two corniest cultures (french and trans)

i like when they operate on the book

If the soundtrack were released it would be the album of the year!

Let's put aside the film's success at representing the trans experience as an incredibly heterogeneous one, and focus instead on its failure as visual art. It has some inspired moments, but the structure relies on repetition and that becomes quite trying. Add to that the awful video-art look of the thing and you want to be in a lecture hall getting credit for this and not in a movie theater expecting to, well, see a movie.

who let the theatre kids into this gender studies class

poses important questions like “what if orlando could have bought a gun?”

vibed with all the brechtian stuff and that one musical number that calls out freud and lacan's gender theories lmao. falls into the trap where the filmmaker is approaching this as an activist and therefore the desire to be understood doesn't leave room for ambiguity or interpretation, something that feels at odds with the experimental form. still very fun and surprising. paul b. preciado was holding a framed picture of virginia woolf during the q&a <3

(q&a w/ paul b. preciado)

Maybe im biased because bc (except on special curatorial occasions) this chump’s ego always annoys the shit out of me….but this whole production felt tres 2011 corny art world liberal bla bla……...it’s well constructed to the point of too clean………..lots of telling not showing (more like paul powerpoint presentation am I right ladies)..……..some cool characters and good jokes but [spoiler alert] does preciado really thinks the end goal of queer lib looks like fucking international trans passports for everyone??? instead of like the end of the nation state?? A great film for people who think being queer is primarily about the way you relate to yourself and not how you exist in the world with others……However this was very fun to tear up with friends at 6am after a night of gay dance party hopping in cmdx xoxo

It's such a cool idea to channel non-binary and transgender ideas from the work of Virginia Woolf, and to connect queer struggles in a historical sense. Spanish trans director Paul B. Preciado created a beautiful, highly personal and unapologetically subversive essay documentary that's not without its flaws, but still charming and inspirational.

Comprising of segments where non-binary people act out the story of Orlando by Virginia Woolf, this is way more theoretical than it's plot-driven. Despite not being a filmmaker in real life, Preciado took on a more intuitive approach to get his points across, and the result is a raw but eye-opening experience. I'm not the biggest fan of the monotonous historical reenactment scenes, but those scarce moments of experimental tryouts show more potential and intrigue, for example, the brilliant operation scene.

I wish this could balance its larger message with its play on form; as it stands now, really, it's swinging from the didactic and expository into the otherwise lyrical and creative (if not sometimes corny) in a way that feels lopsided and dull.