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Barbarella is a A silly Sexual Sci-Fi from 1968, with a well deserved cult following The Opening sequence involves a zero gravity strip tease, setting the tone for the rest of the movie. Our Hero Barbarella, is given the mission to retrieve the scientist Duran Duran and his newly invited Positronic Ray before the weapon falls into the wrong hands. Armed with Winged Liner Sharp enough cut any adversary ( no seriously Jane Fonda eyeliner is on point in this movie) , weapons borrowed from the museum of the museum of conflict, Her tongue box ( a device that can translate any language ) her sexual magnetism, and the ability to change outfits every 20 minutes rivaled only by that of a barbie doll; our hero faces killer dolls , the Excessive Machine ( a machine that can make you orgasm to death) , the Mathmos, and an evil lesbian queen. On her journey she is helped by the catchman; who teaches her the “old fashion way” of having sex is really worth the distraction it causes, A blind angel, and the leader of the resistance.
Honestly this is a great movie , that's stood the test of time. This movie proves you can make a story about Female empowerment that's silly and where sex is just sex, something that can be used as a tool , done for enjoyment, and a pure feminine orgasms reached with a man made machine can sometimes save your life. And while the movie is centered around sex, it isn’t raunchy and doesn't change how the viewer sees our hero. Our blind Angel companion Pigard , is also beautifully written. Using an Angel as the embodiment of love , is a great creative choice. My part of the movie by far has to be the dolls. I love creepy dolls , and would love to own several copies of the dolls from this movie. I’m going to rate this movie a 8/10, because I feel like the ending isn't quite as satisfactory as I would’ve hoped. It would have been nice to have some more dialogue at the end of the between our hero and the the queen who was hell bent on trying to f*ck her the entirety of her screen time. Nor would I have complained if they banged, but totally understand why they didn’t. It would have been nice to see our hero struggle a little more instead of Deus Ex Machina-ing her way out of every situation, but on the flip side that is also part of appeal.
If you wanna watch for yourself, and come to your own conclusion I posted a link to watch this movie for free a couple days ago. 💕
This is my first time trying to do a movie review I know it wasn't the greatest but I hope to get better as I continue to do them
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LuciLucilia
I spoke in the previous blog about how I do like surreal and mindbending Sci-Fi from the old, pulp days. That really is the highlight of Barbarella for me, though it also comes with some of the aspects of old pulp Sci-Fi that hasn't aged as well; that is, the exploitation of women and their bodies.
The movie presents sex as an alternative to violence, but that sex is always only in relationship to violence... not something totally free and liberatory. Barbarella seems to be consenting, but nonetheless, she gives sex as a kind of "expected reward" to the men around her... feeding into the old narrative that if a man is nice to you, he deserves to fuck you. The men around her also seem to put the pressure of this expectation onto her. And twice in the movie, both with the Catchman and Revolutionary Leader, the men around her specifically deny her of the way *she wants to have sex*, putting her in a position of having sex the way they want to have with her, which they will not hear her out about. There really isn't any dialogue had about it.
And whilst I love The Tyrant, since I'm all about evil queenly lesbian Femmes, being that I am one, I really am not surprised that she was specifically the only character that never really got any kind of sexual interaction with Barbarella. Frankly, the Tyrant doesn't come off as much better than the men in some ways, but even ignoring that, I find it a very unfortunate sign of the times the movie was made in that the only queer character is specifically evil and also a lesbian held mostly under the male gaze.
I think there really could be a narrative about sexual liberation in this movie, I do find the idea humanity on Earth has mostly abandoned the primal aspects of sex for a "cleaner" sex to be interesting. There is something to be said of an institutional power on Earth labeling certain kinds of sex as "savage" and "for the poor" as Barbarella puts it, but finding liberation in this world of primal, bodily sex. Still, the idea of a kind of psychedelic mindmeld sex, which is what the pills seem to be, sounds kind of awesome as fuck too, to be honest.
And quickly, on the visual and strange Sci-Fi stuff that was going on... I did enjoy that. Some of the visuals reminded me so much of old Heavy Metal magazines and Moebius comics. Despite my gripes about old Sci-Fi's sexism, this remains a reason I come back again and again. This really feels like a Sci-Fi Odyssey in line with those back in its time. That remains enjoyable for me.
Ultimately, despite the lesbianism, the feminine sexual pleasure, and the psychedelic surrealism... the movie only ever finds these things within the male gaze.
But! I saw that there is a remake being made, specifically by a woman, so hopefully it manages to take these thing sufficiently out of the male gaze. I think I would personally like that a lot more.