One of the very first movies I can recall seeing isn't a Disney kiddie flick--though Fantasia and Darby O'Gill and the Little People are early memories--but rather the Italian adaptation of the French sci-fi sex comic Barbarella. Perhaps that says something about my parents, who took me to the drive-in that night, or perhaps it's just the very memorable nature of the production. Because--and I can think of no better way in which to express this--Barbarella is one fucked-up piece of celluloid.
Produced by Dino De Laurentiis, it strikes me as something of a dry run for his 1980 adaptation of Flash Gordon. Both offer absurd, fetishistic costumes; adolescent sexual references and psychedelic space vistas. Both are also rather tongue-in-cheek, though I think that the latter film is much more successful in that regard. (Barbarella, to its credit, includes the observation: "A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.")
Personally, I think that one danger of making a sex-themed film is that one person's kink isn't necessarily another's. For example, Barbarella has two instances of its title heroine--a space adventuress played by a perky Jane Fonda--chewed bloody, first by a horde of mechanical dolls, then by a flock of rabid parakeets. Yes, parakeets. (The slow-moving dolls, with their clacking, metal teeth, are much more effective nightmare fuel.) This is definitely not my thing.
Barbarella plies the spaceways in a pink, fur-lined starship that resembles the body of a guitar with a bank of air bladders. In the far future, the galaxy is united in peace, and weapons have been outlawed for centuries. That leads to great consternation on the part of the President of Earth when renegade scientist Durand Durand departs for the mysterious Tau Ceti system with the plans for a death-dealing Positronic Ray. Barbarella is sent to locate him, and winds up crash-landing near the sinister city of Sogo.
In short order, she meets some devilish kids, a child-catcher wearing a cold-weather outfit resembling a gorilla suit, whip-wielding guards made of animated leather, a friendly angel who has lost the will to fly and a helpful scientist with the unlikely name of Professor Ping. She has sex with some of them.
Sex drives much of the story. On future Earth, old-fashioned intercourse is seen as barbaric, and folks get their jollies by taking pills and touching palms together. (How this results in children is anyone's guess.) However, the aforementioned guy-in-a-gorilla-suit introduces the innocent Barbarella to the pleasures of good, ol' monkey loving, and she is an immediate convert. In fact, she's so good at it that she inspires the angel to fly once again.
Ultimately, she penetrates (pun intended) the city of Sogo, where she encounters some misfit rebels, a lesbian queen and at last, Durand Durand himself, who is in the midst of an evil plan to take over Tau Ceti...and then the universe!
For a space heroine--and apparently, the best agent at Earth's disposal--Barbarella is quite hapless. Cluelessly pure (so squeaky-clean, in fact, that the evil blob-monster Mathmos can't digest her), she doesn't so much save the day as set in motion a chain of events that kill off virtually everyone she meets.
And for a sex film, Barbarella is pretty innocuous stuff. Sure, there's the opening zero-G striptease, but for the titles go out of their way to conceal the good parts. After a few, fleeting glimpses of nipplage that suggest that better things are to come, the film demurely shoots the topless Fonda from behind or conceals her nakedness behind a translucent screen. And the sex scenes themselves are at the level of a James Bond adventure.
As an alleged comedy, Barbarella is pretty damned dopey. The humor rarely gets far beyond her wide-eyed wonderment at all of the perverse shenanigans going on around her, though there's a mildly funny bit in which the rebel leader Dildano has trouble with an electronic door.
The main appeal of Barbarella, aside from Jane Fonda's costume parade and the promise of seeing her titties is the "what the hell were they thinking?" aspect of the whole enterprise. Words can scarcely describe the weirdness that is this film. For unintentional entertainment value, it's worth a mild recommendation.
Ratings Guide |
|
Zero | What the hell were they thinking? Even Ed Wood was more entertaining. |
1/2![]() |
Dear God in Heaven. Probable involvement of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay. |
![]() |
Seriously shit. Based upon a Saturday Night Live skit. |
![]() |
Mildly crap. Eddie Murphy made another family comedy. |
![]() ![]() |
It's not good. It's not bad. It's just there. |
![]() ![]() |
Has its moments. A bonus half star for a particularly cool robot or perky breast. |
![]() ![]() ![]() |
Solid entertainment. Exploding robots and/or multiple bare breasts. |
![]() ![]() ![]() |
As good as most movies can hope to achieve. May include full-frontal nudity. |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Like Mary Poppins herself, practically perfect in every way. |
This page, and all associated text pieces and photos are © David Thiel, unless otherwise noted. Do not reproduce or distribute this material without express written permission from the author.