Ulrike Ottinger: Freak Orlando

Ulrike Ottinger: »Freak Orlando«
[1981, 35 mm, 126 min]

Ulrike Ottinger’s »Freak Orlando« (1981), a five-act global history of freaks, has been shown all over the world. Beginning in antiquity, it advances through the Middle Ages, the 18th century and the turn of the century and ultimately arrives in the present. The main character, Orlanda Zyklopa, is a reference to the famous character in Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando. Common to both is not just their name, but also their ability to change their features, to be reborn after death and to live in different centuries. A further artistic point of reference is Todd Browning’s film »Freaks« (1932), which is similar to Freak Orlando in that it deals with the parading of abnormalities in a circus.