Sally Potter's Orlando is a film which deals with a mysterious man/woman Orlando, an androgyny. He(she) lived for 400 years, which once he(she) was a man, and then became a woman. This film is different from Woolf's novel in the manner of adaptation t...
Sally Potter's Orlando is a film which deals with a mysterious man/woman Orlando, an androgyny. He(she) lived for 400 years, which once he(she) was a man, and then became a woman. This film is different from Woolf's novel in the manner of adaptation that the film emphasizes a contemporary woman on the contrary the novel does not. The film interprets a novel in terms of gender and modem feminism. Gender theme is central in this film, because it is strongly connected to the theme of androgyny(hermaphrodite).
Also, this film is interpreted with the mythological criticism. Orlando him(her)self in the fiction is a mythic figure per se. His(her) longevity for 400 years and sexual transformation are ambiguous, mysterious, and mythic. According to Gilbert Durand, mythological criticism has a scientific method searching for the mythic pattern or kernel in the written narrative text. Also, he states two kinds of approach. One is a textual analysis dated from literary tradition, the other is a mythic interpretation with mythic event or sequence dissected from the myth in the light of contemporary view.
Androgyny metaphor in the myth is smeared as Orlando figure in the Woolf's work with her own imagination as woman's life itself. Also, this film relates many mythic imaginations: hermaphroditus in Greek mythology, androgynic God in archaic India, alchemy in Taoist and Arabia, and collective unconsciousness with anima/animus in Carl Jung.