2024 Tarkovsky Prize 2nd Place: Muhammad Rehman
ORLANDO: A Society’s Review
by Muhammad Rehman
I have never been more ashamed of society than when I was watching Sally Potter’s film Orlando. Enacted in 1992, Orlando loosely takes the basis of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando: A Biography. Potter does a splendid job at wittingly criticizing the “predetermined” societal roles of both, female and male, sexes through the experiences of Orlando. Brilliantly acted by Tilda Swinton, Orlando is a character who gained immortality for 400 years and switches sexuality halfway through them. Unlike the novel, the film is given a structure with seven small time intervals focusing on a specific topic: death, love, poetry, politics, society, sex, and birth. In each chapter, I was daggered by the judgemental looks of Orlando, pointing out to me the many flaws of society I was oblivious to.
In the chapter on death, the passing of Queen Elizabeth I symbolizes the unsatisfactory nature of humans who continue to live in pursuit of evading death- chasing immortality- in hopes of finding pleasure. Before her passing, the queen commands Orlando: “Do not fade. do not wither. do not grow old.” Despite living a long life, in which the queen undoubtedly must have had myriad pleasures, she is shown to be unsatisfied with the final outcome. In initial reflection, this sentiment bewildered me. Why would she be discontent when she lived such a prosperous long life and met an end known to all? The answer did not come to me until I put myself in her position. It was not the past that would sadden me, but the prospect of a better future in which I would be absent was the demise of my happiness. Here, I began to realize the flaw of human nature which is its insatiability. Despite knowing that we are to meet a similar end, we remain dissatisfied with our current state- not living lives to the utmost. In the next section, Potter further explores the aspects of human nature.
In the chapter on love, Potter highlights the abrupt and unsympathetic aspects of human affection. Male Orlando’s quick disregard for the emotions of Euphrosyne, his loving fiance, when he grows an infatuation with another lady is evident in those aspects. Despite Euphrosyne’s devotion to Orlando, he chases Sasha- an indifferent lady. Like her, too often we have individuals whose love goes unrequited. Watching this, I wondered if it would not be more righteous if love was earnable. If one could choose whom to love? Although it may extinguish an aspect of romance in love, the number of heartbreaks reduced would be immense; any love triangles would cease to exist. Alas, that is only hypothetical. In reality, humans are imperfect with the randomness of love.
In the chapter on politics, Potter illustrated the absurdity and the lengths humans would go to justify their wrong actions. During the war between the Middle Eastern countries, Orlando is stopped from tending to a dying man by a politician exclaiming: “he’s not a man, he’s the enemy.” Additionally, in the contemporary world, politics has integrated into society at each of its levels. And humans have constantly failed to keep equality between these levels. In every corner of the globe, we deal with injustice of some sort- racism, sexism, terrorism, homophobia, xenophobia- which are then legalized by laws. It is maddening to realize the depths of suffering we may cause to others and then attempt to justify it with mere laws. Maybe if people knew the pain caused by their actions on others, some trickle of humanity may shine through. This aspect of inequality is further explored in the section on society.
Although each chapter stuck out to me, the part about society was my favorite. In the chapter on society, I had the greatest revelation of all. I am a man and I know only a few distinctions between men and women, disregarding the physical, and biological differences. And I may be inclined to owe that to my culture but I will not do so. Instead, I wish to wonder if I was born to know neither, would I gain the ability to distinguish between each? I realized, when watching Sally Potter’s film Orlando, that men and women have essentially very little differences but it is society that teaches us how to distinguish and treat one sex from another. When Orlando switches from male to female, she claims: “same person. No difference at all. Just a different sex” but society claims her to be “legally dead.” As a male, Orlando was allowed to own land, and take part in important decisions of society but, although capable, as a woman, her all existence was taken from her unless she bore a son. Although society has improved from the times represented, the fundamental principles that resulted in these inequalities are still present.
We continue to fight for a world where each human is respected and treated as if they deserve a life and Potter’s film Orlando paves a path to do just that by pointing out the many flaws of our human society. The issues presented do not remain in the movie but apply to the real world as suggested by each judgemental glance Orlando shares with the audience- breaking the fourth wall. Watching Orlando is emotionally enlightening as you learn to understand the difficulties of many perspectives in multitudes of settings; it provided a unique opportunity for me to understand the point of view of both sexes and realize they are not fundamentally different. Although Orlando does not speak directly for our times, I think humans could learn a lot from watching Orlando . . . if they are ready to feel the shame.