When I saw this movie the 1st time at the age of 14(?) in german TV, I was something in between bored and fascinated. The left impact was so subtle that I seemingly forgot about the movie for decades. After now almost 30 years I suddenly started to hunt the images in an almost obsessed way. But how was it called? Was it "Wizard of OZ"? I had to dig deep in my "sub concious" to reconstruct the title of that movie begging to find it and succeeded after hours until the title "re-apreared" in my memories: Freak Orlando! Where can those original movies be found in theses days? This time I saw the movie with different eyes. Like a rediscoverd yewel which it is. I even bought Ulrike Ottingers corresponding Book to try and understand the thought process of her. This movie, though being part of a thematic trilogy stands for it's own I think and there are at least 2 ways one can recieve that film. The one is to try and grasp an intellectual dimension with all the philosophical and above all mythological aspects. The other one, which I even prefer, is to just falling into trance, allowing oneself to regress to a mythological level! This is where the magic unfolds the real potential. Thank you Ulrike Ottinger for such a great gift!
Freak Orlando
1981 [GERMAN]
Action / Comedy / Fantasy
Plot summary
FREAK ORLANDO is divided into five more-or-less distinct sections, all featuring "Freak" Orlando, a woman, played by the late Magdalena Montezuma, who appears in various guises, and deformities, throughout.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
October 09, 2020 at 02:33 AM
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Movie Reviews
Two ways to recieve the movie
A perverse and fun film!
How to describe this film? It is loosely based on Virginia Woolf's book 'Orlando: A Biography'. It's sort of like Tod Browning's "Freaks" meets Alejandro Jodowrosky meets the Werner Schroeter meets a Aleksei Balabanov film. A beautiful film that breathes and exudes Audiovisual and is the face of rebel and underrated transgressor cinema of the 80s. It's impossible to place Freak Orlando into a particular genre. The setting feels like a dystopian environment, but the story goes well beyond any conventions. The head-scratching story is both exciting and maddening, and only knows the meaning behind it all. Overall, Freak Orlando is one of the most bonkers films I've seen, the standout performance by the cast plus the incredible set design, mise en scène and the music makes it a surreal feast and, although you can take the easy way out and just press the 'stop' button. It's certainly not an easy watch for those who are not into surreal films but, it is something that is a bizarre film to watch on a lazy evening with beers.
Bizarre yes, good not really
"Freak Orlando" is a West German 2-hour movie from 1981, so this one had its 35th anniversary last year and this is among the earlier, but not earliest, career efforts by writer and director Ulrike Ottinger, also among her most known works probably. I would call it a piece of style over substance though. It is certainly a director's film and the style is clearly visible. However, it is also a case of style over substance. At the end, nothing stayed really memorable here except the colors, makeup and costumes perhaps, but nothing in terms of plot or performances, even if I would not really blame any of the actors and actresses as the material they had to work with here did not offer any possibility for a great achievement range-wise. The cast includes a semi-famous name here and there like Montezuma or Constantine, but no big stars either or any of the most known from Germany at that point. The story includes many somewhat epic moments, but the execution just wasn't on par to make these really seem epic to audiences as well. What stayed in the end was a film way too long for its own good and a pretty surreal film that suffered from all kinds of low production values. I am not sure if I have seen anything else by Ottinger before (probably!) but if I did then it was apparently as forgettable as this one here and I am not curious in the slightest to take a deeper look into her fairly prolific body of work. Watch something else instead.