Barbarella

The Ultimate space adventure.

Ah! Jane Fonda, what a beatiful actress! She was the face of how a late 60's girl had to look to be sexy and trendy. Spam Alternative has done a deep search and chosen her 1968 film Barbarella ,as the on in which she's the hottest space heroin  around. The exploitation opening secquence is just unforgetable, timeless and plain awesome, oh dear god! As the movie official poster line stated this movie is a space age adventure whose sexploits are among the most bizarre ever seen. This is no Star Trek nor Star Wars, the, let's say more serious approach to Sci-Fi is something you won't find here, but hey! we know hell about the future and space aliens so there are no unbreakable canon Sci-Fi standards neither in the late 60's nor in our 21st  century. Director Roger Vadim took the idea of making the film from the French comic book by Jean-Claude Forest. Vadim had no trouble on choosing the main role: His wife, Jane Fonda.

Barbarella became a cult classic not after its initial theatrical release, in fact it was a complete failure on the box office, though everyone went to the theater mostly to check Jane Fonda nude on some scenes, it simply wasn't enough. But when it was re-issued as a video cassette, joining the midnight B movie classics neverending list, the film became a cult piece. The film is loosely based on the French sci-fi comic book, the story is more about the european sexploitation genre making it way into America. But hardcore sex, free love and pop art aren't things that really form part of Barbarella which is ultimately a silly erotic adventure that classifies as a soft-core flick according to the late 60's standards, which were giving way to the most hardcore exploitation films.

The hot opening sequence.

Sexy space girl.

Careful, I got a space gun.

Barbarella (Fonda) is an American government agent in the far-out future as only the wild 1960's could conjure up. War has become a thing of the past, and the planets are aligned in peace. Free love reigns. But the ambitious and demented scientist Dr. Duran Duran (yes, like the 80's pop band) has left earth with a newly invented planet and escaped into another planet. The "French" Earth President (Claude Dauphine) assigns Barbarella to find the missing scientist. Off she goes on her adventure. Throughout the film, she encounters a variety of bizarre, mysterious and exotic characters from a blind angel (John Phillip Law) who, after a sexual encounter, inspires him to fly once more, a Catch-Man who makes love the old-fashioned way, lost souls entrapped in a labyrinth, leather-made, souless soldiers and the Black Queen, a bisexual and wicked tyrant who rules the decadent Soddom-and-Gomorrah type City of Night. Upon her arrival into the city, the angel is crucified and taken prisoner of the Black Queen who uses him for sex, and Barbarella is subject to Duran Duran's "orgasm" machine, whose powerful keys can trigger a fatal orgasm (!)

Rescue me please!

Nice hairdo.

If all these elements sound like the plot to a 1970's porno-theater movie, this is exactly what Barbarella is like, unfortunately, without the graphic sex scenes. While there is nudity (such as the opening scene in which Barbarella strips in zero gravity) it's done in the softest of soft-core manner, worthy of the images in 1960's Playboy magazines. The sex is implied but never shown, but while Barbarella engages in sex with men to thank them for assisting a government agent, the sex is worthy of soft-core porn set to really good music. The script is as lousy as a porno and attempts to be very comical. The problem is the British, French and Italian actors in the movie are not trained in comedy (neither is Fonda who mostly spews one-liners like "I'm not tube kind of girl") so the result is mostly dry comedy without any real ha-ha-ha moments. But the best parts of the film: the 1960's signature. It's a time capsule of late 60's pop culture, from references to "the pill" to the easy sexuality and "free love" to the total irreverence (i.e. an angel, always associated with holy love and God/religion, succumbs to sex by both Barbarella and the evil Black Queen). The "Matmos", a primal force of nature looks like the inside of a lava lamp waiting to break through the glass. While there is not much drug use, there is a scene in which men and women are getting high on "essence of man" and resembles smoking pot or weed. It's also a very campy, kitschy, surreal film designed to look like some hippie's drug trip. 

Nude before the president.

My kind of girl.

Would you scratch my back with this lovely feather?

The colorful sets and imagery is unlike anything audiences had seen before, like some sprawling work of graphic novel art. The music by Michel Magne and James Campbell is absolutely wonderful, dramatic and yet fun, loose, light jazzy melodies, a terrific composition of film music. The cinematography by Claude Renoir is a combination of "Flash Gordon" type of sci-fi imagery (bizarre spaceships, rock formations, planets) and the costumes by Jacques Fonteray and Paco Rabane are delicious 1960's camp and very sexy. The film is meant to be a lot of fun, despite the slight longeur and slow pace. Be warned: this film is hardly feminist, despite the female heroine looking like a space warrior. She is the figure of Roger Vadim's fantasies about seductive women using sex as their only form of power over men. Barbarella never once really uses her brains or brawns. It's all sex. The movie influenced "space warrior girl" movies found in pornography of later years like the 1980's and 1990's as well as comedies like "Austin Powers" (Duran Duran and Dr. Evil are very similar). Barbarella is a movie of it's era. 

Here is the movie trailer:

The movie main theme:

Scott Weiland's Barbarella with a little help from Cyndi Lauper:

And the most obvious, fag dudes Duran Duran and their Electric Barbarella: