Barbarella (1968) Review

Barbarella 1968
Directed by Roger Vadim

Roger Vadim directed Barbarella in 1968 and casted Jane Fonda to be the lead role, Barbarella, who was said to be one of the most beautiful women of her time, but many find the film just to be “the campy adventures of a 41st-century sexual explorer” and with good reason many would agree.

Numerous encounters by reviewers have brought the film to its knees, “The film is ugly on so many levels—from art direction to human values—that it's hard to know where to begin. Let's be charitable and write it off to love—Fonda was married to director Roger Vadim at the time.”

The honour that remains with this film is due to its relation between its adult comic book, “Based on the French banned bestseller comic book by Jean Claude Forest and produced by Dino de Laurentiis” but by mere referencing between the film and comic strip you can automatically see a close relationship, especially with characters and even more so with environment, from the dark corridors of the city Sogo to the dark caves of the labyrinth, the translation is beautiful, which is a uphold for any director to translate comic to film as many recent years have seen, especially from Marvel.

Even with a great deal of audiences disliking the film, “Barbarella isn't very much of a film…” it has still been an inspiration for many, “Fonda's signature role has inspired everybody from Duran Duran (who named themselves after O'Shea's bad guy), to Kylie Minogue (who based the video for her single 'Put Yourself in My Place' on Fonda's naked floating around in space).”

There are  of course some who do like the film for what it is, and what it isn’t trying to be, “Can a movie be so horribly BAD and really, really cheezily GOOD all at the same time?! Oh, absolutely! This film is an EXCELLENT example of campy fun crap that hopefully wasn't supposed to be taken seriously.”

Sources:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Calendar/Film?Film=oid%3a140287http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/barbarella/Film?oid=1065594
http://www.shoestring.org/mmi_revs/janeandbarbarel-ms-88173199.html http://www.film4.com/reviews/1967/barbarella http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117788872?refcatid=31
http://www.joblo.com/reviews.php?mode=joblo_movies&id=1284