Movie Stats:
Released 1968 (USA)
French & Italian, in English (a minuscule amount of non-translated French; non-translated, made-up alien languages)
Director - Roger Vadim
Stars - Jane Fonda, Milo O’Shea, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg
Plot Summary:
In the distant future, Barbarella (Fonda) is sent by her government to find missing scientist Durand Durand (O’Shea). Law co-stars as Barbarella’s new angel acquaintance, Pygar, and Pallenberg as the evil tyrant of an alien planet.
Warnings:
Extensive female nudity (mostly breasts, minor butt), violence, minor gore, heavily referenced sexy times.
Bad Stuff:
Oh look, another 1960s movie that requires drug use to enjoy.
Barbarella is a sexually naive character that is basically taught during the course of the film to use sex as a commodity, as in “I saved your life, therefore you should have sex with me.” That made me very uncomfortable.
Once the novelty wears off, it’s a little boring.
The soundtrack is terrible.
Good Stuff:
It’s kind of funny.
On the flip side of the sex stuff, I liked that Barbarella is a shamelessly sexual woman (one character does slut shame her but he’s the bad guy so fie on him).
Loved the costuming.
It had a lot of interesting ideas about the future.
The Verdict:
I actually saw this once before. I recalled it as silly and harmless, and was frankly surprised to find it on a list of top 100 films. I figured that, with multiple added years to my age since the last time I saw it, I would probably hate it this time around. I didn’t hate it. I don’t think it’s a great film, but there’s a lot of fun in it. I enjoyed the sexual freedom of it, and the ideas about love and peace. It was very 1960s. Also, there were quite a few sayings/scenes that I recognized, in that they’ve been used/referenced in popular culture these last 50ish years. I didn’t know that they came from this film. Clearly, it’s iconic, and that’s why it ended up on this list.
I give it 3 stars.
2 comments:
Interesting about the things that came from this film that have made their way into popular culture. That made me slightly interested.
Also I laughed out loud at the 1960s/drug use required comment.
One of the characters is named Durand Durand. Which was a pleasant shock. Wikipedia tells me that Duran Duran is indeed named after him, likely inspired by a club they used to go to called Barbarella's. There were also some quotes that I recognized from it, although I've already forgotten them.
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