I have always been a huge Virginia Woolf admirer and she has been an inspiring literary figure in my creative and poetic writing. However, another part of my fascination with her was from the extraordinary and deeply troubled life she led while writing her masterpieces. While I had read many articles about her life events, they all instantly paled in comparison to the first few minutes of the indie film “Vita & Virginia” that was released in 2019.
The movie centers around the true story of the romantic affair between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, which inspired Woolf’s most popular and well known literary work: “Orlando”. The script was largely drawn from letters that Virginia and Vita wrote to each other and the known events of that time in Virginia’s life.
From the beginning moments of the film, the intensity and almost frenzied way that Virginia’s mind works is introduced and the audience is given the sense that she is almost living in another dimension as well as the world she is portrayed in. Her writing room is dark and drab but she doesn’t seem to notice as she writes furiously day after day.
In contrast, Vita’s character is bright and colorful, young and vivacious. She pursues Virginia after seeing her at a party almost relentlessly and finds Virginia’s unequal response to be frustrating and perplexing. The audience learns early in the film that Vita is what they called in the day a sapphic and that she’s already had several scandalous conquests with women while being married to her husband.
Vita’s intensity and striking personality turns Virginia’s world upside down, but somehow, through the film, it seems that her troubled mind struggles to handle this kind of distress brought along with knowing Vita. A large aspect of Virginia’s actual life was having to live with mental illness. It is thought that she was mostly likely depressed and possibly even bipolar. The movie never directly addresses this but the grey lens that her scenes are filmed with, creating an almost washed out look, conveys the feel of her dark mind.
Because of their contrast in color and vitality, one might think that Vita was an inspiration for Virginia to become more light and happy but instead she seems to drive Virginia towards more madness and turmoil. While a large aspect of the movie is their journey in becoming lovers, so much of the way is paved with pain and difficulty. Vita’s lifestyle of taking and leaving lovers doesn’t fit when Virginia eventually develops a deep attraction to her and this fact tears Virginia apart.
When it seems that Vita has abandoned her, Virginia seems destroyed but in that moment, a new story comes to her and she exclaims to her husband that at first she had “No ideas, nothing, then suddenly it came to me like a fin rising out of the water.” The idea was for her next great literary work and it would be based on and inspired by Vita. She writes it off of Vita’s life, studying her and asking her question after question. This crucible moment in the film was filled with heartbreak and yet was still so beautiful and inspiring because Virginia used those intense, painful feelings to fuel her writing and creativity.
Overall, I thought the film was incredibly well done and the way that it portrayed Virginia and her feelings and character was enthralling. I appreciated that way that they wrote her mental illness into her life and that it wasn’t something that was the largest part of her story but something that she was dealing and living with throughout all the other things happening around her. The scenes where she would have a breakdown or be suicidal were very poignant and at times painful to watch but only because they were so well done. Her emotions were so vivid, especially when she was with Vita and both of their feelings were so deep, you could feel them in yourself while watching. I really enjoyed this film and am so grateful for the chance to learn more about my literary idol and watch her intense journey of writing and publishing her greatest work of literature.
The Beat @APU 