So I watched this movie yesterday. A bizarre sci-fi movie with Jane Fonda in the title role. It was such a new and amazing experience, that I wanted to do it again. Not with this specific movie, but still. Shows, like Community (2009-2015) injected with some kind of love to b-class movies, but I never actually watched even a few if any. After this film, I got an idea, to make it kind of a series, where I watch funny, so-bad-that-its-good kind of movies, maybe even try to choose old ones and specifically sci-fi or fantasy. We’ll see because the old ones are probably hard to find legally. If I’m not into buying digitals on Amazon tho and yeah, that’s not really an option, since I pay for four streaming services, so we’ll have to be satisfied with mostly newer movies. For now, we got Barbarella (1968) and I want to talk about it with someone.
Also, I’m gonna get into *SPOILERS* here, so if you ever plan to watch this movie, which is currently available on Amazon Prime Video.
I’m gonna start with the story because there isn’t much to say here. The main character goes on a mission to find a lost person. She gets in some trouble, gets out of them, that is repeated two or three times. The lost person turns bad and dies. That’s the whole thing I thing. I don’t want to shit all over this movie because it isn’t that bad, just the story is very basic. It has 73% of positive reviews from critics, which was a bit of a surprise for me. At least half of the jokes were funny for me, but there were so many opened threads and plot holes, that if it wasn’t for the humor, crazy world, and unrealistic characters, I would be bored in 10 minutes.
Barbarella, played by Jane Fonda, is the main character and the movie stands mostly on her shoulders. She’s the best agent on a mission to save one guy, which eventually turns out to be a hero saving a whole city. She’s also the eye candy, which is shown from the beginning, with the a-little-too-long intro. She’s also a damsel in distress, that needs saving all the time. It’s a weird mix, that isn’t that popular, at least not now, where most of the female protagonists like Captain Marvel or Cecilia from Invisible Man (2020) could at least mostly handle themselves.
On the way, she meets three men, who help her on her journey. Mark Hand, who saved from the flesh-eating robot babies and his plot, are mostly a fill out because the movie is just one and a half-hour long. She has sex with him and he never comes back. The next one, Pygar, with a bigger role in the story. He does not just save her, he’s also used as a transport and she has sex with him. The last of his kind angel is blind, which makes for some interesting interactions between him, Barbarella, and the big Villain. We lose him, to meet the third hero and he comes back at the end. The last important for the story protagonist, Dildano, my favorite character in this movie, also saves our heroine, this time from birds. He’s portraited as a comic relief mostly, but you can see, how much fun the actor has playing him and how he loosens every break. Oh, yeah, they also have sex. But this time through the pills, she mentioned earlier, because he’s not a savage, duh.
The villain of this story, The Tyrant, Black Queen of the city, that Barbarella is supposed to save, isn’t actually that bad. If I read her actions correctly, she just wanted to have sex with the heroine, like most of the characters. The movie doesn’t show us how she rules, or how she uses the living, thinking fluids to control the masses, or how the fluid is somehow working on her mind. It’s weird and lazy, but somehow it works for a moment.
Why did I mention sex so many times? Because there’s a lot of it and it makes this movie kind of a softcore porn, which I realized after when I searched for other movies like this one. It’s weird and funny at the same time, that every time Barbarella gets in trouble, just to be then saved by a man, so she can have sex with him as a thank you. And after checking for the source (on Wikipedia), I found out, that it’s an old, french comic book series. And yes, this happens a lot.
Barbarella: a young woman who travels from planet to planet and has numerous adventures, often involving sex.
Wikipedia
Although, in my opinion, the last sex scene, with Dildano, was great and made for a good joke.
As I found out, Jean-Claude Forest, the creator of Barbarella, was an advisor, when the created the scenery. It looks kind of awesome. It makes you think “what drugs were they on?” every time you look closely at the background. This creativity mixed with a low budget (9 million dollars in total) turns out to make an original and psychedelic world. Which, you know, is good, if someone likes such things. I’m normally not in contact with such creations, but it’s something, that I might change soon. Also a few words about the special effects. No CGI, just practical effects, and some cutting and pasting. I don’t know if CGI was an answer back then, probably not, and even if, then not with this budget, but still. Seriously, using half-naked people as props to make parts of the walls in the labyrinth, was a bizarre idea, but turned out to add to the climate of the world.
Spoiler-free zone from now on.
Barbarella is one of those characters, who are long forgotten by pop culture. Yes, a 12-issue comic series came out in 2017, and yes, Robert Rodriges wanted to do a remake a few years ago, but this doesn’t change much. The original comic series ended in 1964, the movie is far from hitting for big masses. This movie made an interesting watch-once-and-forget experience, which I very much appreciate sometimes. It made me laugh and sometimes even amazed. Probably not on what the creators intended me to laugh, but still. It’s also boring, with a lazy story and many plotholes, but makes partly up with the bizarre, colorful world and funny written characters. I liked it and it’s the reason I want to watch more low budget, b-class, sci-fi or fantasy movies. I’m satisfied.
Favorite outfit:
Favorite quote:
I’m not a savage! The pill!
Dildano
Sources:
Pic. 1 Barbarella (1968), dir. Roger Vadim, Paramount Picture, from IMDb
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Pic. 2 Jane Fonda in Barbarella (1968), dir. Roger Vadim, Paramount Pictures, from IMDb
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Pic. 3 Jane Fonda and Anita Pallenberg in Barbarella (1968), dir. Roger Vadim, Paramout Pictures, from IMDb
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Pic. 4 Jane Fonda, John Philip Law and Roger Vadim behind the scenes of Barbarella (1968), dir. Roger Vadim, Paramount Pictures, from IMDb
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Pic. 5 Jane Fonda as Barbarella, Barbarella (1968), dir. Roger Vadim, Paramout Pictures, from IMDb
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Princess with Pancakes 