Review: Barbarella

41^st Century ‘Astro-Navigatrix’ Barbarella (Jane Fonda) is given the assignment of locating missing scientist Durand-Durand, creator of the Positronic Ray weapon. Along her journey she will encounter a blind angel named Pygar (John Phillip Law), a macho trapper (Ugo Tognazzi), and a predatory bisexual leader known as The Great Tyrant (Anita Pallenberg), among others. Milo O’Shea plays the concierge to the Great Tyrant, Claude Dauphin is the President of the Earth, Marcel Marceau plays Prof. Ping, and David Hemmings turns up as Dildano, a frazzled rebellion leader.

 

This 1968 flick from director Roger Vadim (“And God Created Woman”) cops a lot of flak, and even a lot of critics damn it with faint praise by calling it a ‘cult item’ in what I believe is slightly begrudging tone. Even star Jane Fonda appears to be somewhat bemused and slightly embarrassed about the film. While I’m hardly going to try and convince you that this adaptation of a French comic book is a technical masterpiece, there’s a reason why it currently sits in at #56 on my Top 200 films of all-time list: Entertainment value. Seriously, if this movie isn’t fun to you, I have to put into question just what your idea of fun is.

 

We start off with an awesome title song that you simply will not get out of your head for a week, and an unforgettable title sequence featuring a zero-gravity striptease. Perverts, you’re looking for the name ‘David Hemmings’, right after that is where the boobies appear. In my opinion, it’s probably the second-best title sequence/design in cinematic history, behind only “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”. As for Ms. Fonda, I honestly think she feigns embarrassment about the film to shut the feminazis up. She’s sexy, funny, and more than competent in a film that really only requires the first two, with the third a happy bonus. Is the film dated? Of course, its futuristic design, like that of “Soylent Green” is based on what that generation would’ve thought the future would look like. That is, it’s still very 60s, so of course it has now become dated in 2016. However, it’s so incredibly 60s that it looks amazing and only a complete churl would fail to agree with me on that. It’s certainly a very colourful film and in my view, unquestionably cool. Even if the FX have dated, the film is clearly imaginative, and that certainly hasn’t dated. It’s a bizarre and unique worldview on show here. It’s interesting that both this and the later “Flash Gordon” are Dino De Laurentiis productions because in my view, the latter tried and failed to achieve this film’s look and style. “Flash Gordon” did have Brian Blessed and the far superior soundtrack, mind you. This one has Marcel Marceau, Keith Richards’ ex, a naked Jane Fonda, and a villain whose name served as the inspiration for the name of a certain 80s Britpop band.

 

There’s a lot of wonderfully weird things going on here; Creepy vampiric porcelain dolls, a phenomenally hairy and dubbed Ugo Tognazzi playing a smug chauvinist very well, a futuristic depiction of sex filtered through the 1960s as being a heightened meditative state of being (“Demolition Man” amusingly parodied it), and a blind winged humanoid angel named Pygar (John Phillip Law). Pygar is the source of one of the film’s most amusing ideas, as at one point he remarks ‘An angel doesn’t make love, an Angel is love’. He’s blind, ergo love is blind. That’s a great idea if you ask me. Speaking of great, Jane Fonda has a seriously spankable arse. Hey, it’s that kind of film, OK? The film is also kinky as fuck (well, in an oddly sweet and innocent kind of way only the 60s can provide), from the purring Joan Greenwood-dubbed Anita Pallenberg’s predatory bisexual ruler The Great Tyrant, the villain’s literal instrument of torture etc. That last one is particularly one-of-a-kind stuff, and a memorable scene. It’s certainly the film’s most intentionally funny scene. As for Pallenberg, she and Greenwood combine to create a great, creepy, predatory performance. It’s probably the second most memorable performance in the film behind the wonderfully crazed Milo O’Shea as Durand Durand. Meanwhile, the last line of the film may be ‘An angel has no memory’, but watch the facial expressions of all involved and tell me the line’s not subliminally ‘An angel digs threesomes *wink*’.  We also have a place called SoGo named after Sodom and Gomorrah (!), and I’m pretty sure David Hemmings is wearing leather and garters. So yeah, this is kinky stuff right here.

 

Would a film like this work if made today? Of course not, and that may be the chief reason why a movie remake has never really gotten anywhere (I hear rumblings of a TV version recently, though). However, if you get into a huff about the title character being a sex object, a) You’re missing the point: Fun, and b) You’re ignoring the fact that Barbarella is the film’s lead and a heroic one at that.

 

Wonderfully 60s set-design, groovy title song and infectious music score, funny lead performance by Jane Fonda, and an enjoyable space opera story. If you don’t have a smile on your face throughout this flick, rigour mortis must’ve set in. It doesn’t cure cancer, and it’s not trying to. Yes it’s a bit empty in a way, but so what? Is there anything wrong with (mostly) surface-level entertainment? It’s camp, but in my view I don’t remotely look down on such a thing when it’s done so enjoyably well. In fact, I think it’s legitimately great entertainment. The screenplay is by Vadim, with Clement Biddle-Wood (“Spirits of the Dead”), Vittorio Bonicelli, Claude Brule, Brian Degas, Jean-Claude Forest (the creator of the comic), Tudor Gates (Hammer’s “Lust for a Vampire”), and Terry Southern (“Dr. Strangelove”, “The Cincinnati Kid”, “Easy Rider”).

 

Rating: A+