Barbarella (1968) – Review

Despite Roger Vadim’s 1968 swinging, sci-fi sex comedy, Barbarella being quite possibly the very definition of a cult classic, as a child of the Star Wars generation – a movie that’s about as sexually liberated as a Saturday morning cartoon – it’s a cinematic experience that’s largely passed me by. While I’d happily submerged myself in the unfettered paranoia of the 50s and the more suspicious political leanings and giant hair of the 70s, the era of 60s sci-fi had largely eluded me besides the occasional viewing of Peter Cushing’s Doctor Who movies and, of course, Stanley Kubrick’s brain melting 2001: A Space Odyssey – I mean, I’m not a total philistine.
However, in an attempt to educate myself, I thought I’d jump right into the deep end and expose myself to one of most whacked out entries that the peace and love generation had to offer and what I found was oddly… sweet.

Nubile space adventurer Barbarella takes time out of her busy schedule of sensually removing spacesuits in zero gravity to take a video call from the President of Earth where she (while nude) accepts a mission to locate the missing inventor known as Durand Durand (maybe he’s Hungry Like The Wolf?) who has gone missing along with his new weapon, the deadly positronic ray. As Earth has enjoyed centuries without war due to everyone being all chilled and enlightened and shit, the existence of a death ray could be catastrophic, so the wide-eyed, space nymph gets some clothes on an sets off for the Tau Ceti planetary system along with her astoundingly camp ship’s computer, Alphy.
However, her mission is plagued and beset on all sides by delays, dangers and various amorous encounters that includes her ship crashing, getting attacked by sinister space children armed with flesh nipping dolls and learning how to make love the old fashioned way from the remarkably hirsute ferral child collector, Mark Hand. This last encounter proves to be the most advantageous because in this distant future, the people of Earth have forsaken the highly distracting act of physical love and thus achieved centuries of peace in favor of some transcendent shite featuring a pill and some hand holding.
With the possible ramifications of this new act buzzing throughout her body, Barbarella then crashes again in the middle of a vast labyrinth populated with the poor souls of those cast out of the city of Sogo by the Great Tyrant, a cruel leader so slinky, she makes Ertha Kitt look like Shirley Temple.
Befriending a blind, chiseled angel known as Pygar and curing his flight restricting depression with a bit of sexual healing, Barbarella enters Sogo in order to finally track down Durand Durand (maybe she should try Rio) and complete her task; however, if she’s going to do that, she’s going to have to avoid the Mathmos, a state of pure evil in bubbling, liquid form who’s certainly not going to be swayed by the adventurers sexual awakening… is it?

Based on the French comic by Jean-Claude Forest, Barbarella is many things; it’s relentlessly goofy, endlessly ridiculous and as playfully suggestive as a single elimination camp-off between Kenneth Williams and Frankie Howard – but one thing it isn’t, is stupid.
On the surface, however – especially in these cynical times – Barbarella seems very stupid and at times downright regressive as its story of a young, stunning and painfully innocent blonde engaging in sexually tinged adventures on faraway planets seems like the stuff of sweaty, erotic fiction that only sought to make women into objects to be either menaced or seduced – often both – by domineering space-dudes. However, once you get into the meat of the film (so to speak), it becomes abundantly clear that Roger Vadim’s vision is far more innocent than you’d think. For a start, this absurd universe that we’re plunged into is a huge, blaring siren that we’re to take this hugely fanciful future withvdo much salt it could probably kill a bull elephant stone dead. Living in a retro-futurist world so stylish, even the interior of Barbarella’s throbbing ship looks like a Las Vegas hotel room that Austin Powers would be overjoyed to bone in a d the general aesthetic is so garish it makes Mike Hodges’ kaleidoscopic Flash Gordon reboot look positively conservative in comparison. Slotting perfectly into this exaggerated universe is a menagerie of oddballs and weirdos who all remain utterly fascinated by this bright-eyed blonde who literally has wandered into their orbit. Most striking is the angelic Pygar who, with his sick abs and his expressive wingspan looks like he’s fluttered right out of a Da Vinci painting with an aloof expression plastered on his unfeeling face, but the fact that the last thing I watched that had the actor John Phillip Law in it is Space Mutiny, a film most famous for being utterly destroyed on an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 – which only makes things funnier. Elsewhere we have a cast that contains an overtly comedic turn from David Hemmings as a bumbling freedom fighter and legendary mime Marcel Marceau in a speaking role and set pieces that sees Barbarella nearly stripped to the bone by killer parakeets and managing to overload a machine that’s supposed to deliver fatal orgasms, however, throughout it all, it’s all held together by how Barbarella herself is both presented and performed.

Somehow single handedly centering all the insanity with the same balance of innocent and knowing, wry humor she displayed in Cat Ballou, Jane Fonda, her “sex kitten” phase in full effect, commands the screen with a performance that’s as impressively multi-layered as it is amusingly wholesome. It also helps that Fonda fucking owns her killer one liners. “Are you typical of Earth women?” Asks someone at one point with one of the world’s most desired women answering, “I’m above average.” with an effervescent beam on her face, while elsewhere she delivers lines like “I better adjust my tongue box.” to perfection.
She essentially embodies the free love beliefs of the summer of love, as she offers herself to multiple partners willingly and safely without any fear of intergalactic ghosting or space gonorrhoea. It may seem massively naive or even somewhat irresponsible these days, but in a gloriously overblown slice of 60s science fiction – why can’t we have a future where casual sex is clean and consequence free?
As a result, Barabarella wins the day for no other reason than she’s a really, really nice person with her sexual appetite acting as a distinct and refreshing positive when other films might have made things more tawdry, like something out of famous sex spoof Flesh Gordon.

Genuinely funny and insanely iconic to boot, Barbarelka proves to be as winningly witty as its heroine. During a famous titles sequence that’s been homaged into oblivion by no less than Kylie Minogue, Katy Perry and Arianna Grande, watch the credits desperately dance about in a vain attempt to cover our heroines naughty bits is sublime.
While this example of high camp may not usually be my cup of tea when dealing with science fiction – I’m more of a “destroy all humans” type of guy than seduce them – but the pleasures of Bararella simply can’t be denied; even by someone living in a primitive state of neurotic irresponsibility.

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