Janus Contemporaries: Orlando, My Political Biography

[domino harvey]

TK

[Red Screamer]

There’s been a wave of conceptual-ish documentaries in the past decade or so, but it’s not often that they pull off their conceits as thoughtfully and appropriately as this film does. It occasionally flags in finding new ways to connect Virginia Woolf’s novel to contemporary trans culture over the gulf of a century, but the more important thing about all this playfulness is that it allows for a wide variety of participation from the performers. And the conventional aspects aren’t neglected: when interviews are this direct and not phoned in, you remember why it’s a mainstay of the nonfiction film in the first place. For an essay film by an academic, I was caught off guard by how hard it hit emotionally while avoiding many of the obvious moves, both of the rhetoric of the “political documentary” and of the stylistic conventions of the “art documentary.” Instead, it’s the grace notes that are so moving, as the whole film is animated with a palpable sweetness and excitement. I really enjoyed this—and it will be interesting to see what it looks like a decade from now when, for example, its final passages about identity papers will hopefully not be so literally ripped from the week’s chilling headlines.