Barbarella (1968)It’s the 50th anniversary of this strange, salacious, oddly funny b-movie. Ja

Barbarella (1968)It’s the 50th anniversary of this strange, salacious, oddly funny b-movie. Jane Fonda is in on the joke but she’s never winking about it. It’s camp, sure. It’s stupid fun, definitely. It’s got killer dolls with razor teeth. It’s got devices like the “Positronic Ray” and the “Excessive Machine.” It’s got a certain charm. It’s weird. I still remember this film like a fever dream. Jane Fonda use to be embarrassed about the film but has since come to embrace it. Roger Vadim, Jane’s ex-husband and the director of the film, called it “a kind of sexual Alice in Wonderland of the future.” Sounds about right, I guess. It’s a silly film that was based on a French science-fiction comic about a sexy female astronaut. 80’s British band Duran Duran took their name from the movie’s villain scientist. It feels like sexploitation but that’s the shallow read. I don’t know if you could craft a feminist reading of this movie even though it does involve a woman exploring and finally embracing her own pleasure (to a certain extent, there’s also the fact that Barbarella is constantly made into a damsel in distress being saved by men, maybe if someone ever re-made ‘Barbarella’, they might be able to re-imagine the character with more agency). If this movie weren’t so ridiculous and if Jane Fonda wasn’t so knowingly humorous throughout, it would be easy to dismiss. It’s brain candy. It’s got a blissfully dispensable plot. It’s got an acid induced art direction. It’s worth watching at least once. That’s it, I’m done now. -- source link

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