A review and discussion by Rebys J. Hynes and Dorian Rose.
Rebys
I write this on a cloudy Saturday morning before my first Pride. I have been living as an out-non-binary person for four years, wrote for queer zines, lived a queer life, and have yet to do a Pride. At a time when Tesco keeps its flags up two weeks after June ends just to avoid accusations of Rainbow Capitalism, and our fresh new government still can’t commit to banning conversion therapy, and supporters of genocide try to pinkwash by pretending to support our liberation, finding pride in Pride is a difficult thing to do. But today we march as a protest, like every Pride before us. I tell you this because the film we’re about to discuss is all about the context of living as a trans person today. To situate a discussion of the fictional in our-every day lives.
My name is Rebys J. Hynes and in this review, I’ll be Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.
Orlando, My Political Biography (2023, Paul B. Preciado) is a French documentary film that has just finished its limited run in UK cinemas. Through interviews with twenty-six trans people and one dog, Preciado transformatively retells Virginia Woolf’s landmark queer text, to explore trans lives and bodies, cisgenderism, pharmaceutical liberation amongst many other issues that affect trans and gender-non-conforming people.
21 different actors play Orlando – each introducing themselves as ‘Virginia Woolf’s Orlando’ – defying any sort of stable categorisation for the literary figure. It is a film that is non-binary on every level. It is a documentary and it is fiction and it is neither. People play themselves and the characters of Orlando and both. It is a retelling and it is an essay and a critique and, at times, nothing even remotely like any of those things. It is a stunning work of cinema unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It is a film that is fundamentally trans. I hope, truly and deeply, that is the harbinger of a beautiful trans cinema to come.
I first saw the film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival last year, determined to make it to the morning screening as I thought it would be my only chance to ever see the film. Getting the opportunity to see it again this week has been lovely. The first time, I saw it with my Mum and it prompted a lovely discussion in Edinburgh Street Food about my own trans journey. The second time, I saw it with queer friends. Both times, seeing it alongside the broader audience was a transformational experience. The audiences were flooded with trans and gender non-conforming people. The act of putting on these films changed these spaces – I love the indie cinema circuit, but it’s rare I will see more than one or two trans people at any screening at a time. To sit with an audience majority comprised of trans people is a privilege and an experience. Queer curation and queer programming is one of the first steps in creating queer spaces.
I have so many things about the film that I want to ask you, Dorian. But let’s start nice and simple:
What did you think of the film?
Dorian
First of all – hello, my name is Dorian and in this review I’ll be Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Gotta keep up with the vibes.
I should preface this by saying that your experience in viewing Orlando: My Political Biography shows a stark contrast to my own – sat at home eating biscuits, trying to intellectualise every scene. I ended up stewing in a broth of my own tears, cursing this cruel world for its views on gender.
Despite (or maybe due to) my attempts to critically view the film instead of simply watching, I felt like my very soul was being spread on an incredibly intellectual slice of filmic toast. As Orlando kept playing I slowly melted into its metaphors and stories, resulting in a soggy end to digest this imaginary trans liberation, and to sip on life’s woes.
Orlando is as artsy a film as you can get, by no means a simple watch. In spite of this, it is easy to become engrossed in its storytelling, in its world and characters.
While Orlando guides you through many complicated depictions of trans life, history, and politics – it does so unapologetically, with a peaceful pride, gracefully passing through each story like chapters of a book.
We’re taught at once about Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, her life; trans life, politics, and history; but also about ourselves. Every moment of the film is a point to self-reflect upon (making for a very good catalyst to any mid-life crisis you’re thinking about starting).
Weeping my eyes out during the credits, I had my own realisation to the incredible ways that transphobia has affected my view of the world. I wanted to exist in this film, not only to celebrate my queerness, but to enjoy it like I enjoy air. To be free to express myself through the liberation and love of all those around me. That is what Orlando is about: the abundance of queerness, and the should-be right for it to flow with the wind. Well, that and everything else.
There is one scene in Orlando depicting (quite accurately) the experience of pathologisation that many trans folks have to go through.
Frederic Pierrot looks into the camera, announcing to the audience that he ‘will be Dr Queen, a psychiatrist’. He is here to represent the Queen and imperial power within Woolf’s Orlando and Preciado’s Orlando: My Political Biography. As the scene opens, in his practice are multiple trans patients with whom we get to see glimpses of in Dr Queen’s office and his waiting room. We sit in a session with one such patient, Orlando (played by Liz Kristin). Dr Queen pathologises their ‘transness’, at one point emphasising genitalia. Orlando responds by expressing fondness with their ‘feminine penis’. Queen dictates that there is ‘biological reality’ and ‘fantasy’, questioning Orlando on the gender of their sperm. Orlando responds with brilliant confidence, expressing the biological reality that neither genitals nor body fluids have a gender, and that to believe they do is “an invention of modernity."
To watch this scene is at once horrifying (harkening back to our own experiences) and liberating. Seeing Orlando have the confidence to express themselves with knowledge abundant within trans communities felt like free therapy. Of course, many trans people avoid arguing with doctors about the realities of gender: fearing the refusal of treatment or complications therein.
All the while this scene signifies a modern take on Woolf’s story - where in the book, Orlando’s gender is put towards medical debate. What a moment to behold!
And this leads me to ask, what do you think about this ‘fuck the cistem’ rhetoric in Preciado’s Orlando?
Rebys
I love the multitude of ways in which this film says ‘fuck the cistem’, in railing against the oppressive and failing medical system, in reclaiming joy in our bodies and our transitions and our experiences. My favourite thing about this movie is all the queer space it creates. Even in Dr. Queen’s waiting room - a liminal space in which we must wait before being subject to invasive and patronising interrogation – the trans characters, the Orlandos, forge a queer space. One in which the cistem is mocked and trans people can sit and openly discuss their struggles and their issues. In which they administer HRT to each other because why wait around for the system to fail you? All of this whilst they erupt into the campy yet revolutionary bop that is that the ‘Pharmacoliberation’ song. That one line, ‘You might be synthetic but not apologetic / You’re not the doctor’s bitch’ was on loop in my head for days after watching.
And it’s not just in the office are queer spaces built and relished. The woods, a film set, a courthouse, in this film all become places where we can live beyond the cisgender gaze. Where our bodies are not subject to their eyes and our rights are not theirs to take away. It’s perhaps fair to say that this film less says ‘fuck the cistem’ and more ‘long live trans liberation’. It criticises the powers that try to control us, but the film’s true revolution is in the beautiful freedom of trans life. That’s how I felt watching this film – beautiful. In a world of trans liberation, we are thriving and we are beautiful.
That closing scene is so striking as a result. I would love to hear your thoughts on it! The film ends in a post-revolution world, where the cistem has fell and trans liberation has been achieved. It dreams that that future is only a few years away, which is perhaps a little optimistic. But it is the dream that is wonderful. The film luxuriates in that final scene – it goes on for so long, we hear everyone get the liberation they deserve – and in the slow pace, the film stresses each individual life that will be elevated by liberation.
I find it interesting that you call it artsy, because I’ve come to think of it as being almost the exact opposite. Don’t get me wrong, the premise of a documentary-fiction-adaptation-not-adaptation sounds pretty damn artsy, and I did literally see it first at a film festival so that’s another notch in the artsy column, but I have come to think of this film as super low art and I love it. It’s a bit shoddy at times. Cheap and camply so, and there are moments where it almost felt like I was watching a high-budget student film (complementary). There are risque jokes and queer jokes galore – what do you expect from a film that includes in its cast the role of ‘Goddess of Gender Fucking’. It really does seem artsy at first, with its allusions to a classical literary text and its deconstructive approach. But get past that, and you have a really accessible, camp, joyous picture.
It’s as I write this now that I realise what Orlando reminds me of. It’s not a piece that is high-art or low, its not documentary nor fiction. It is a zine. A filmic zine. It has that DIY feel, of a bunch of people coming together and sharing their experiences, creating art together that exists on the periphery of the system. It is how stitched together it feels, whilst still having a cohesive vision across its entirety. It is subversive and even though it has featured at film festivals and had a limited release, it really feels underground. I love what you said about every moment of this film being a point to self-reflect upon – it perfectly summarises how this film is brimming with ideas and catalysts for understanding of the self and of society. It is a manifesto, it is a thoroughly non-binary text, and it is closest I’ve ever known to seeing a zine on the big screen.
I have two questions for you? First, have you read Orlando? I haven’t, and I would be fascinated to discuss the difference in experiences between those who have read the base text and those who have not?
And second, I am intrigued by this film’s lack of discussion of pronouns. It talks extensively about surgeries and experiences and legal recognition, yet there is little to no mention of pronouns – a facet of trans identity that tends to dominate modern discourse.
What do you think of this absence of pronouns?
Dorian
You’ve caught me red-handed: I haven’t read Woolf’s Orlando either! The intermittent explanations of Woolf’s novel were very welcome in my noggin, and rendered the watching process something like the greatest lecture I’ve ever had. But this makes the discussion of difference futile indeed.
I do find it a very ‘non-binary’ film, for lack of a better term. There is simply no reason to discuss pronouns in general throughout the film, so it simply doesn’t. It is one aspect that makes the film distinctly trans for trans: there is a distinct lack of pandering towards a cisgender audience. It doesn’t try to explain any aspect of trans existence, whatever explanation is given is purely a side effect.
There’s a whole bunch of trans people out here with a whole bunch of different lived experiences. The ways in which we tend to explain our ‘transness’, all intrinsically unique to each person, are through the cisgender gaze – or should I say, the cisgender mouth. Our pronouns are one such effect of the imposition of their tongue into our throats (sorry for that picture). And there is something powerful about language: it is emotional, it is full of context, and it holds power. In removing something as simple as pronouns from our art, we are able to remove the power that cisnormativity holds upon us, even within us. Of course, this doesn’t work in cisnormative spaces (because the pronoun is unspoken), but within transnormative spaces we find freedom – just from this small act.
It is art such as this that can revolutionise our ways of thinking, our lives, and our communities. Resistance is not just existence – resistance is existence when we also share it with others: occupying normative spaces, creating art, having conversations, and finding confidence within ourselves and ourselves-with-others. An inconceivable amount of trans folks find themselves lonely, sometimes alone too – and art like Preciado’s Orlando can help to combat that.
Rebys
I find it so wonderful that neither of us have read Orlando and yet we are still overflowing with love for this film! To me, that shows that
1.) this film does a great job of guiding you through the plot of the novel and
2) it’s not really about Viriginia Woolf’s Orlando at all.
It is about the stories that have come before us that we see ourselves in. Nearly every trans person has a weird, messy pop culture piece they can point to and say ‘there, that is where I saw myself’. I have a list as long as this review. My Political Biography is less about the text of Orlando, and more about seeing your ‘biography’ in somebody else’s story.
I adore this idea of a T4T cinema! I have seen three films with trans content in the cinema over the last month: Orlando, Crossing and I Saw the TV Glow. Crossing has some good moments and it is great to see trans sex workers’ lives depicted on screen, but with its focus on cis characters and cis guilt it struggled to feel like the sort of trans cinema I wanted. I mention this because the audience for this film was predominantly comprised of cis people (as far as I am aware – of course I am cis passing 50% of the time). Whereas when I saw both Orlando and I Saw the TV Glow, both screenings were overflowing with trans/ visibly queer people. These are films made by trans people, for trans people. With these films screening across the UK, bringing trans audiences to see trans films, we are starting to see a model for a T4T cinema and that is just beyond beautiful.
Before we wrap up, I want to really highlight what you just said. Resistance is existence when we also share it with others. I have read this sentence over and over again because I find it just beautiful. This world, as a trans person, right now, not the best. But I share this world with my trans siblings and my queer family. This film, this conversation, our lives, we share and we exist and we resist. T4T cinema can really help us usher in a T4T world.
I love this film not only because it is a wonderful piece of cinema, but also because it has inspired so much introspection and reflection and it has led to this conversation, which I have thoroughly enjoyed having with you.
Dorian
Thank you so much for sharing this space with me Rebys, for your kind and extensive commentary, and for anyone who has made it this far in reading!
As we move on, I hope that we can find more ways to bring this type of cinema, of creativity, to more trans folks who need it most. I, for one, find it incredibly difficult to access the various events and spaces where I can revel in all our trans glory.
If you’re like me and have little ability to travel, I’d like to point out the esteemed poets Jaime Lock, George Parker, JP Seabright, and their recently released pamphlet Not Your Orlando – which you can buy online for delivery! Despite being completely removed from the world of Orlando: My Political Biography (in fact George said they’d never even heard of the film), the film and the pamphlet go almost hand in hand – they should be available at all viewings!
It is exactly these moments where we discuss our joys, our experiences and lows, that build ourselves in stronger community. We find ourselves in each other, as they so eloquently put it:
“it’s okay to be like this there’s nothing broken nothing to fix this is who we are this is how it is”
-Cwtch Butch, Not Your Orlando by Jaime Lock, George Parker, JP Seabright (2024, Punk Dust Poetry, page 39). Link here.
Love and solidarity, Rebys J. Hynes & Dorian Rose xo
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