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| Images courtesy of Arrow Video |
After numerous examples of mid-60 campy science-fiction
retrofuturism ushered in by Italian filmmakers such as Mario Bava or Antonio
Margheriti began appearing on international film circuits, Italian producer
Dino De Laurentiis having recently funded Bava’s adaptation of the action-crime
comic book series Danger: Diabolik set his sights on French comic artist
Jean-Claude Forest and his still-published yet controversial erotic-sci-fi
comedy adventure romps Barbarella.
A blonde, young fictional earthling heroine tasked with tracking down a
deadly intergalactic weapon who on her sojourn from planet to planet has
various sexual encounters with aliens as well as mechanized sex toys, the
series was credited with being among the first official adult erotic comic
books despite not being pornography and depicted the titular Barbarella as
a sexually liberated woman with agency despite running into numerous precarious
scenarios.
Tapping French-Russian erotic filmmaker Roger Vadim, best
known for And God Created Woman with Brigitte Bardot whom he was briefly
married to, the crew fresh off of Danger: Diabolik was ready to go on Barbarella
while casting and screenwriting fell into place through personal relations
to Vadim. Jane Fonda for instance was
married at the time to Vadim so naturally the director cast his wife in the lead
role in a film that all but gazes up and down upon her naked body when
able. Then there’s Dr. Strangelove screenwriter
Terry Southern who was a friend of Vadim’s whose initial treatment might not
have ended up onscreen but his snarky sensibility is absolutely felt in the
dialogue. Despite extensive rewrites and
a kitschy mixture of sexual humor and softcore titillation, the film proved to
be an expensive endeavor costing nearly $9 million between France and Italy
with some wild set pieces and numerous green-screen effects sometimes
intentionally rendered to look artificial.
In the year 40,000AD, mad scientist Durand Durand (Milo O’Shea
camping it up) develops a laser weapon that can vaporize all animal and human
life touching its beam when the planet Earth’s president proceeds to send Barbarella
(Jane Fonda) to intercept and destroy him before its too late. After crash-landing her ship adorned with
silky fur on the interiors, her journey begins in the Iceland of Tau Ceti where
she is rescued by Mark Hand (Ugo Tognazzi) and is guided by the protective
vigil of angel Pygar (John Phillip Law from Danger: Diabolik) with hokey
looking angel wings into the underground lair of Sogo where Barbarella
encounters all manner of orgiastic debaucheries. From there, she crosses paths with the Great
Tyrant Black Queen (Anita Pallenberg) whose brand of lusty sex traps threaten
to derail and swallow up our plucky heroine.
A tongue-in-cheek sex comedy goof predating such campy
freakouts as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls while predating the fembot
swinging-sixties lunacy of the Austin Powers movies and bubble-gum
chewing tough girl retrofuturism of Tank Girl, Roger Vadim’s adaptation
of Jean-Claude Forest’s still running (at the time) comic book series is a
cavalcade of kitschy high camp. Almost
Ken Russellian without going near that man’s tendency towards dirtiness with an
impish, almost playful mixture of sex, goofs on the male gaze and deliberately
corny, garish looking set pieces and visual effects montages of psychedelic
lava lamps and/or chemical reactions, the film is more of a time capsule than a
dirty horndog’s lurid sci-fi fantasy.
Never taking itself seriously with hilarious songs and music
written and performed by the Bob Crew Generation Orchestra (reportedly
including future Pink Floyd member David Gilmour), from its sultry opening
credits sequence of Barbarella frolicking about in the nude in zero gravity to
the lush panoramic cinematography by legendary The Grand Illusion cinematographer
Claude Renoir. The set and production
design by Mario Garbuglia is remarkable for its mixture of sprawling large sets
and deliberately fake looking miniatures often together in the same shot. While visually stunning, you’re frequently
invited to laugh at its hokeyness. Then
you have the costumes by Jacques Fonteray and Paco Rabanne which all but completely
define the sexy universe of Laurentiis, Vadim and Forest’s creating.
Performance wise, Jane Fonda is asked to strut and roll
around or look wide doe eyed into the camera as a sexually liberated woman
whose control and actualization of her sexuality comes at a cost to her
extraterrestrial encounters, including but not limited to a hilarious sequence
involving a sexual stimulating machine she manages to break for being too
strong for its seductive powers. John
Phillip Law as the blind angel Pygar looks like an angelic Terence Stamp who at
one point gets crucified and then per Barbarella’s demands ‘de-crucified’. Anita Pallenberg of Nicolas Roeg’s Performance
adds her mixture of sexiness, attitude and danger to The Great Tyrant as a
counterpoint to Barbarella and Milo O’Shea almost out-camps the wide eyed
antics of Zero Mostel with his supervillain.
Probably second to Fonda in terms of overqualification for this sort of
thing is David Hemmings as, pardon my saying so, Dildano (another sign of Terry
Southern’s subversive funny names), a caped crusader and formidable ally to
Barbarella’s misadventures.
Released theatrically on a moviegoing public unsure of how
to process such a strange cocktail of sci-fi camp theater of the absurd and carnal
fleshy sin, Barbarella though met with tepid critical reception
nevertheless went on to become a box office success, particularly in England
where it became the second highest grossing film of the year. Clearly an influence on what would or wouldn’t
become Star Wars as a countercultural swashbuckler while sidestepping
the austerity of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the film and its comic book
series was debatably ahead of its time. Initially
lambasted as corny soft-porn sexploitation (which on some level it is), in the
decades since it has been canonized as a quintessential slice of camp
retrofuturism influencing not only numerous films to come but music rock bands
as well including but not limited to Duran Duran lifting their name from the
titular villain.
Arrow Video have pulled out all the stops with their new 4K
UHD limited edition boxed set of Barbarella replete with an extensive
book and double-sided poster replete with the original monoaural mix, Dolby 5.1
and Dolby Atmos remixes. Looking at it
now, its obvious eventual kid cousin down the evolutionary chain was Mike Hodges’
Flash Gordon which is nowhere near as raunchy but absolutely spoken of
the same breath of garish camp. Jane
Fonda has since gone on to do more demanding Oscar nominated roles and probably
doesn’t look back too fondly on her ex-husband’s blatant scopophilia onscreen. But for fans of intentionally gaudy and
ridiculous looking sets, swinging sixties music and a whole lot of absurdist
sexy sci-fi comedy, Barbarella for good or for ill is something of a
poster child imagining what a Russ Meyer space movie might’ve looked like.
--Andrew Kotwicki
