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Orlando Blu-ray

Orlando Blu-ray Review

I see that there is no thread for this great, bizarre art-house film that has had poor home video releases before this blu-ray. So, I guess we should start a thread to talk about the movie and/or blu-ray.

Here's my user blu-ray review: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Orlan...6/#UserReviews.

For the lazy:
Ever since its VHS release in 1995, I was always intrigued by the VHS cover with Swinton's hypnotizing looks as I always browsed past it in the video store for many years, but for some reason I never rented it. 15 years later, I'm glad I blind-bought this blu-ray - Orlando is one unforgettable, dreamlike film anchored by the bizarrely attractive Tilda Swinton. I've always thought of Swinton as an actress that seesaws between ugly looks to hot looks to ugly looks to hot. This movie certainly shows why she's a physical appearance seesawer. The first half of the movie, she plays a man (basically looking like her characters in her "ugly" movies) and then in the second half in the movie, she plays an attractive woman (her "hot" movies).

The movie takes about an hour to get used to. The first part of the movie is a bit jarring, disconnected and confusing at first, but once she transforms into a woman by the second half of the film, the movie becomes clearer, and by the climax, I feel it eventually emotionally connects to the audience.

The blu-ray video quality is overall excellent - the night scenes are solid, but it's those day scenes with pop out with clarity, colors, and three-dimensionality. For a non-Criterion title, it is such a treat to see art-house films get such respectful video quality. The DTS-HD 2.0 is perfectly mixed as well - the dialogue and music work very nicely together.

The extras are quite generous as well for such a film: there's an interesting interview with Sally Potter (a very smart woman), film festival clips, clips of Potter's days in Eastern Europe, an interesting audio commentary with Potter and Swinton, and a trailer for the film.

Sally Potter made a very unique, fast-flowing film - it's too bad she hasn't done anything so amazing after filming Orlando. This movie reminded me a cross between Mel Brooks' History of the World and The Fountain directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. I highly recommend this film and blu-ray!

Movie: 4
Video: 4
Audio: 4
Extras: 3.5
Overall: 4.5