Barbarella

Directed by: Roger Vadim - 1968 - France/Italy - Color - Blu-ray - 2.35:1 - 1 hour, 38 minutes
Starring: Jane Fonda, Ugo Tognazzi, Anita Pallenberg, John Phillip Law, David Hemmings

In the 401st century, there is peace in the universe and humanity’s neuroses have been conquered. Love is the rule of the land and sex is a thing of the past, replaced with taking pills and matching your psycho-cardiogram to a potential mate for intense hand-to-hand bonding - literally touching palms. When a rogue Earth scientist named Durand Durand defies the peace and creates a Positronic Ray of destruction, the President of Earth calls on 5- star double-rated Astro Navigatrix Barbarella to track him down and return him to Earth. Following Durand Durand to the Tau Ceti region, Barbarella finds him in SoGo, a city powered by a lake of Mathmos, a substance that feeds off of evil and negativity and in return, gives power and light. With the help of her winged friend Pygar, last of the angelic ornithanthropes, and exiled scientist Professor Ping (a surprisingly chatty Marcel Marceau), Barbarella will take on the Great Tyrant of SoGo and try to find Durand Durand before his Positronic Ray falls into evil hands.

Barbarella is the second-shiniest movie I own. Starring Jane Fonda and directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, the film is based off a French comic created in 1962 by Jean-Claude Forest. The character of Barbarella was modeled on Brigitte Bardot, Vadim’s first wife, which brings things to a whole new weird level. The world of Barbarella swaps out sci-fi’s standard polished and sterile environments for a 60s phantasmagoria of sequined outfits, shag rugs, shag walls, go-go boots, and fur pelts worn by even furrier Italians. 2001: A Space Odyssey may have won all the special effects awards that year but it never attempted anything as fantastic as the zero-G striptease that opens this film. Barbarella was a critical and commercial failure upon its initial release, but finally found success in a 1977 re-release, presumably from audiences who didn’t think Star Wars was sexy enough. Years later, after inspiring several band names and several more fashion designers, Barbarella has become a true camp classic.

Trailer
IMDB page
Nancy McGuire Roach - “In Praise of Barbarella”