Barbarella

Later in his career Roger Corman would admit that the posters designed for his B-movies were nothing but a tease, often created before a script was even written.  The films were a poor – but enjoyable – substitute for whatever was promised in print.  The same thing could be said of the Frank Frazetta Conan paperback covers that reinvigorated interest in Robert E. Howard’s famous barbarian. And, if we’re being honest, it applies to Roger Vadim’s Barbarella (1968), which features one of the most iconic movie posters in film history….but only meets its audience halfway. 

Based on the French comic strip by Jean-Claude Forest, Jane Fonda plays the title character, a sexpot secret agent tasked with returning a renegade scientist, Duran Duran, to the planet Earth before his secret weapon destroys the stability of the galaxy.  Sleeping her way into the resistance led by the bumbling Dildano (David Hemmings), Barbarella charms herself out of many a dangerous situation before leading a revolution on the exotic 16th planet of the Tau Ceti system.

 

With an episodic screenplay from Terry Southern (among others), Vadim’s film is a counterculture touchstone, not so much for its narrative accomplishments as for reshaping Jane Fonda into a high-fashion, enlightened sex symbol, flying in the face of her straight-arrow career path to that point…not to mention her father’s Hollywood reputation. Barbarella is a James Bond spoof with artistic pretensions.  But it never goes quite far enough; or perhaps Vadim (Fonda’s husband at the time) can’t allow himself to fully commit to the joke.

 

What is does do well is bring the world created by Forest’s artwork to technicolor, psychedelic celluloid existence.  With inventive sets, outlandish costumes and oddball technology, there isn’t a frame in the film that doesn’t take your breath away…including the opening zero-gravity strip scene.  Producer Dino De Laurentiis recycled some material from his previous comic-strip adaptation, Danger: Diabolik, and would revisit the same look in 1980’s Flash Gordon.  

 

But for all its hippie, sci-fi world-building, Barbarella is a drag when it comes to crafting a compelling plot.  Fortunately, Fonda makes for a fascinating, doe-eye heroine and  David Hemming generates some genuine laughs in his short screen time.  If it’s not quite the movie one would have imagined from the poster, at least you get your money’s worth in costume changes.

 

This is the sort of thing 4K set-ups were simply made for!  And Arrow Video doesn’t disappoint with a new restoration that improves upon just about everything while retaining all that beautiful cinematic grain structure.  The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray limited edition includes a whole second disc worth of extra interviews, video essays and a priceless archival behind-the-scenes piece called Barbarella Forever that provides a fly-on-the-wall look at the production process.  Liner notes, lobby cards and a fold-out poster complete the package.

 

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