Sunday, May 10, 2009

Barbarella

This is probably one of the most baffling films I have ever seen. My first reaction was to hate it. A film that I should absolutely despise as nonsensical Eurotrash. It came across to me as silly, absurd, pointless, and dumb.

The film is based on the “adult” comic book by Jean-Claude Forest. Upon further review I see a bizarre charm in this film, a campy cult classic. However, in no means does it make this a good film. It isn’t. The film is the equivalent of soft core pornography. The opening credits is nothing short of Fonda stripping for the camera.

The film stars Jane Fonda as the title character, who is technically not the “Queen of the Galaxy” as the promotional title suggests. In this film, Barbarella is contacted by the President of Earth (snicker, har har) to rescue the doctor by the name of Durand Durand (snicker, har har) to keep any potential weapons from being created since that will potentially destroy the eternal peace that has been created across the universe (snicker, har har). Upon crashing on this planet, she is introduced to the concept of physical intercourse (“civilized” people just take pills that do the trick).

I’m still trying to think if the director was ahead of his time or if his director of photography was just insane. The camera work is not typical of the era it was filmed in, and the film have some, how shall I say it, interestingly composed shots. And I’m not even referring to the “acid trip” sequences of flying through space, or escaping the evil city on SoGo.

The film has no pace or rhythm. Things appear to happen, but with no plausible or logical progression between sequences. By roughly the second half of the film we have some idea of what the characters are “really” doing when they make plans with members of the underground of SoGo. Before that it is just touch and go.



The quaint film is enjoyable, but only if you can stomach silly, pointless, meaningless films of the past. It’s clear that they knew what kind of film they were making, along the lines of another Dino De Laurentiis produced film in 1980, Flash Gordon.

** 1/2 out of *****

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