THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.
by Jarrod Jones. This is Re/Play, where we take a fresh look at an older film, TV series, or video game to see if fond memories hold up under remastered scrutiny. This week: Roger Vadim’s Barbarella, available now in 4K from Arrow Video.
THE MOVIE: Barbarella
ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: October 11, 1968
NEW FORMAT: 4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible), restored from the original negative. Features original lossless English mono audio, plus remixed Dolby Atmos surround and lossless French mono (featuring the voice of Jane Fonda). From Arrow Video.
RE/PLAYING: Comic book movies just hit different back then. The special effects might not have been as slick as they are now, but a producer with untold stores of ambition could make even the most outré extraterrestrial worlds come alive onscreen. It took guts, creativity, and a willingness to take a financial plunge.
The late Sixties were a playground for comic-to-film adaptations. Among several films and TV series (Tintin! The Smurfs! Of course, Batman!), Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise saw some live action with Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp, and Mario Bava made Danger: Diabolik based on the works of Angela and Luciana Giussani. That last one starred John Phillip Law and was produced by Dino De Laurentiis, both of whom would go on to collaborate on a minor miracle of science fiction freakiness that we’ll talk about in just a second. These projects lacked modern gloss. But comparing cinematic fantasies of yore to their more recent brethren still gives them an edge — an unfiltered, unpredictable quality that suggests anything could happen.
That was certainly true of Barbarella. As a comic strip — or “bande dessinée” in its native France — Barbarella was funky, bizarre, sexually aware science fiction brought to film in an equally kinky fashion. It also boasted an all-timer of a space cadet: Jane Fonda, at a critical crossroads in her career at just 30 years old, guided through the uncharted waters of the Sixties’ sexual liberation under the direction of her then-husband, Roger Vadim.
Barbarella was part of a bigger cultural awakening, a blend of sensuality and curiosity that mirrored the changing social mores of the time. Today’s fantastic offerings could learn a thing or two from it. Despite its battalion of screenwriters (including Barb’s creator, Jean-Claude Forest and Dr Strangelove’s Terry Southern), the film eschews perfunctory busy work (like — gah! — an origin story) that so often gets in the way of the fun stuff. (In this case, sex, ray guns, and strange new worlds.) It embraced the spirit of spontaneity, much like Forest, who admitted to following inspiration without a concrete plan.
You can keep up with the plot of Barbarella; it’s not exactly a knotty story. It starts with a rousing credits sequence in which Fonda wriggles out of an astronaut’s suit only to be debriefed by the Earth’s President, played by Claude Dauphin. (“I’ll put something on.” “Don’t trouble yourself.”) Her mission? To track down and retrieve Durand-Durand (Milo O’Shea), a rogue Earthman building a cosmic death ray on some far-off planet. So Barbarella slips into the first of several iconic fits and zooms off into adventure — and, moments later, into the bed of a fuzzy new friend named Hand (Ugo Tognazzi). He rescues her from danger, and so she rewards him with sex, which opens Barb to all kinds of new experiences to come.
The commentary isn’t subtle. In Earth’s enlightened future, sex is a clinical thing, as we learn all about during Barbarella’s rendezvous with a revolutionary named Dildano (David Hemmings). There’s some stuffy explanation about “exaltation transference pellets” and “harmonized psychocardiograms” — Earth’s future version of foreplay? Possibly — and the act is eventually achieved through taking a pill and touching hands. (Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock shared a similarly sterile tryst in 1993’s Demolition Man.) Compare this to Barbarella’s earlier physical sexual experience with Hand — her first — where she’s left dreamily sighing into the blankets and pillows, forgetting about her mission. Hey, it happens.
Later, when she finally reaches Durand-Durand, he attaches her to a device designed to kill her through pleasure: Death by orgasm. (What a way to go.) With her sexuality awakened and hungry — hell, her lovemaking has inspired John Law’s dour earthbound angel Pygar to fly once more by this point in the film — Durand-Durand’s plan backfires on him. It’s an extended sequence where Vadim lovingly frames Fonda’s face with glistening soft-focus lensing as she writhes and Durand recoils. Her ecstasy results in both victory and the film’s statement: See? Sex ain’t nothing to be ashamed of.
Barbarella must have been a phenomenon in 1968 when it first premiered. Zero-gravity strip shows, cosmic hanky-panky, stoic angel men who discover the ways of love, and at the center of all of it, primetime Jane Fonda — all set to the shaggy tunes of a Bossanova soundtrack. People are quick with aphorisms like “they don’t make ’em like they used to,” but when it comes to movies like Barbarella, they really don’t.
That’s a shame. Imagine what it might have done for our contemporary cultural woes, where too many online weirdoes (many of them, alarmingly, young) decry sex scenes in films, had more blockbuster dreck over the years put in an iota of the unabashed sensuality that is all over the place here. Imagine a cinematic universe constructed around the works of, say, Guido Crepax. When you watch Barbarella, it’s easy.
ACTUALLY SPECIAL FEATURES: The Arrow two-disc set — Disc One being the film in 4K; Disc Two with a suite of engrossing features on Blu-ray — comes with all the attendant bells and whistles. There’s the reversible sleeve with original movie art (boasting new work from artist Tula Lotay) and an array of collectible postcards featuring stills from the movie. Giving this handsome box set some added heft, it comes packing an illustrated collector’s booklet with essays by the late film critic Anne Billson, Escape Magazine founder Paul Gravett, and scholars Véronique Bergen and Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén.
The Blu-ray extras disc comes correct. There’s what appears to be an introduction video that went on for too long and ultimately became its own thing in “Another Girl, Another Planet,” an “appreciation of the film” by film critic Glenn Kenny, which has some fun bits of trivia and insights. Those curious about the 1967 Rome production should invest 15 minutes and check out Paul Joyce’s behind-the-scenes featurette “Barbarella Forever!”, which contains never-before-seen archival footage.
For a deeper dive into Barbarella, watch “Love,” a two-hour chat between film and cultural historians Tim Lucas & Steve Bissette, who reflect on its cultural impact and the myriad influences it left in its wake. (Those looking to hear more from the frightfully knowledgable Lucas should know that he also supplied commentary for the film.) There are interviews with film fashion scholar Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén concerning Jacques Fonteray’s costuming, actor Fabio Testi talks about his time as a stuntman for John Phillip Law, film historian Eugenio Ercolani speaks on the career of Dino De Laurentiis, it goes on. Video releases rarely come more comprehensively or beautifully than Arrow’s Barbarella.
RE/PLAY VALUE: Glenn Kenny describes Barbarella as more of a “vibes” movie. He’s correct; the offbeat grooves of its soundtrack, garish and hastily assembled set design, and childlike innocence from its lead can grate the nerves if one attempts to view Barbarella like it were a straight sci-fi melodrama. The 4K upgrade lets this pop confection sparkle in the way it was always meant to. Its newfound fidelity makes this perfect for cocktail party background visuals, and its easy-going energy and beguiling performance from Jane Fonda serve as healing candy for hungover souls to devour the next day. Something wild was stirring in Sixties society; now, you can own the film that helped wake it up.
8/10
Barbarella is available on 4K Ultra Blu-ray now. For purchasing information, click this.
Directed by Roger Vadim.
Screenplay by Terry Southern and Roger Vadim, with Claude Brulé, Vittorio Bonicelli, Clement Biddle Wood, Brian Degas, Tudor Gates, and Jean-Claude Forest.
Cinematography by Claude Renoir.
Starring Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Marcel Marceau, David Hemmings, and Ugo Tognazzi.
Produced by Dino De Laurentiis
Screencaps are sourced from DVDBeaver.com.
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