the eyes

i have never see this yet... but all movies have symbolism in them.

Crystal Gayle - "don't it make my brown eyes blue" is a song.

{the media sells it and you live the role} -Ozzy Osbourne

I think tilda swinton has blue/green eyes.

Perhaps she was wearing contacts in the begining but forgot them in the final scene.

or perhaps it's just the lighting or film process that made them look brown at the begining.

It will probably remain below the threshold of consciousness if you're not looking for it. I watched the film a couple times without realizing Orlando's eye color did more than just always seem to "fit in" well. But then, prompted by this question, I watched yet again with close attention to Orlando's eye color.

It changes too dramatically far too often to be an accident. Despite what the "trivia" section says, I didn't see it changing exactly once with each and every incarnation, but rather according to something else. Sometimes it changes less quickly than the years. And other times it changes much more quickly: for example it's almost black while the sex change is occurring, but then just a few seconds later, when the female form is revealed in the mirror, it's a much lighter green.

Mostly it seems to shift to match the color palette of the scenery and costumes (and the ethos of the period). This reason alone seems to motivate most of the changes. Personally I don't think there's any "symbolic" explanation.

It's brown during the indoor Elizabethan scenes, which are done with a red/brown/orange palette. It's blue in the ice scenes (many with Sasha). It's black when viewing the play, whose whole color palette is variations on light and dark. It's some fairly light color to match all the outdoor sunshine and indoor light tan palettes when Orlando's an ambassador. It's a light green as a female returning to England, and continuing in the salon scene with its pastel palette. Then during the romantic (and Victorian) period, with all the talk about nature and the lush green palette (and Shelmerdine), it's a quite dark green. And sitting in the publisher's office it's an indistinct "natural" color (what's often called "hazel"?)

Once it's a pun. In the scenes with the poet "Mr. Green" it's most definitely green.

And occasionally it helps to portray an emotional state. It's very dark blue when Sasha doesn't show up at the rendezvous. And of course at the end sitting under the tree listening to the angel, it's a striking light blue.