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" by German documentary maker Ulrike Ottinger is easily one of the most surreal movies I have ever seen.I can compare this relentless orgy of surrealism to the cinema of Alejandro Jodorovsky and John Waters.The film obviously lacks cohesive story-line.It's a series of bizarre vignettes which take place in eccentric worlds filled with freaks and Siamese twins.There is plenty of eccentric humor in "Freak Orlando" and lots of weird theatrics.The central character of Orlando is played by Magdalena Montezuma,but there is also Delphine Seyring in the cast whom I remember from wonderfully stylish lesbian vampire flick "Daughters of Darkness"(1971).Overall,"Freak Orlando" is a must-see for the lovers of bizarro cinema.5 Siamese twins out of 10.Not for the easily bored like I am.

"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.