Orlando: My Political Biography film review — entertaining manifesto channels Virginia Woolf

In Orlando: My Political Biography, the “my” is that of Orlando, the gender-switching, time-travelling protagonist of Virginia Woolf’s novel. It is also the “my” of Paul B Preciado, the Spanish-born writer and theorist of trans identity who, on discovering Woolf’s book, very much recognised his own story. Finally, the “my” is that of the 20 trans and non-binary people in Preciado’s French-language film who each in turn play Orlando, recounting their experiences through Woolf’s creation.

Spare and altogether Brechtian, this film is a world away from Sally Potter’s lush 1992 adaptation of the book, although you can imagine it has left an imprint here. Preciado’s Orlando, however, is very much its own thing, a swashbuckling first feature by a writer whose approach, while intellectual, is anything but drily literary.

The director narrates and appears, but the spotlight belongs to the various participants, mostly young, who each don an Elizabethan ruff to introduce themselves. Their testimonies slip between their own stories, seemingly conversational and off-the-cuff, and Orlando’s. It is disorienting when a contemporary teenager suddenly talks of being betrothed to one Lady Margaret or fleeing the court of Charles II because of cyberbullying.

Preciado takes a similar shape-shifting approach to style, moving between dramatised sequences in a minimalist vein that very much recalls Derek Jarman, and essay mode, pithily expounding his theories on gender and politics (identity papers as “administrative prostheses”), as well as insightful takes on Woolf. Throughout, the film provides a compelling platform for the diverse people Preciado has encouraged to present themselves to the world through the guise of Orlando.

While essentially a manifesto film, this is a briskly entertaining one, with alluring visuals — by turns stripped, elegant and luxuriantly brash. There is even a raucous techno dance interlude — and you can certainly imagine Jarman having an approving chuckle at that.

★★★★☆

In UK cinemas from July 5