Durand Durand is missing. No, not the band (though that’s how the band got its name – from Barbarella) and, since Durand’s identity is a secret, the actor’s name has been omitted on purpose. Still, when a scientist capable of creating a positronic ray that could bring war back to a universe that’s gone without for centuries goes missing, it’s enough to make a president concerned. That’s why the president of Earth (Claude Dauphin) has decided to call on astronavigatrix, Barbarella (Jane Fonda), to find him. If Barbarella is naked when he calls, so be it. With so much at stake, who has time to put on clothes?
“Love” is the word in Barbarella and there’s a lot to love about Roger Vadim‘s film adaptation of the popular bande-dessinee. Starring Fonda (who was married to Vadim at the time), there’s Mario Garbuglia’s production design (shag carpet walls in Barbarella’s space ship); Jacques Fonteray’s costumes (a silver space suit that looks like a puffer coat for Barbarella and a hairy suit for one of her lovers (Ugo Tognazzi) that predates Burt Reynolds’ bear rug centerfold); and poppy, jaunty music courtesy of Bob Crewe, Charles Fox, and bands like The Glitterhouse that make it impossible to frown during sequences like Barbarella getting pulled on ice by a manta ray.
Other standouts in the film include Anita Pallenberg who plays a woman who’s good with daggers and ends up taking to Barbarella (though credit should also go to Joan Greenwood, who dubbed Pallenberg for the English track and whose delivery of lines like “dead duck” and “pretty-pretty” sell the character).
The best part about Barbarella, though, is she’s not a superhero. Sometimes she drops her gun or crashes her space ship, and that’s OK. She’s human. The world doesn’t always let women make mistakes, but they do. In the end, Barbarella will still save the day.
Bonus Features:
Disc one includes a commentary track by film critic Tim Lucas, who’s also written a monograph on the anthology film, Spirit of the Dead, which includes a segment directed by Vadim and starring Fonda. Along with addressing the Georges Seurat painting on Barbarella’s space ship (which I was hoping somebody would bring up), Lucas provides an overview of Vadim’s career and points out some of the ways the film deviates from Jean-Claude Forest’s comics (like the scene where Barbarella is taken prisoner and transported by manta ray-pulled sled – in the comics it’s a different animal). He also considers the different language tracks and the move from optimism to dystopias in sci-fi films, as reflected by movies like Barbarella and Planet of the Apes (which came out the same year).
Disc two is completely devoted to bonus features and sees Lucas return with comic book artist Steve Bissette (The Saga of Swamp Thing) for a conversation that’s even longer than the film itself and sees them cover everything from contemporary comics that were made at the same time as Barbarella to comic book movies and how Barbarella treats sex in the movie versus the comics.
“Dress to Kill” is an amazing featurette by fashion scholar Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén (who also contributed to the essay booklet that comes with this set) on Fonteray’s costumes, where Lundén also sets the record straight on Paco Rabanne. While Rabanne worked on Barbarella’s final costume, Fonteray did all the rest, yet even in the new interview with Fabio Testi that included on this set (where Testi talks about being a stuntman and acting as John Phillip Law’s body double in Barbarella) there’s text that come up at one point that miscredits Rabanne as being responsible for Fonda’s costumes.
Additional bonus features include an interview with Tognazzi’s son, Ricky Tognazzi, an interview with camera operator Roberto Girometti (who filmed a lot of the close-ups for cinematographer, Claude Renoir), a featurette on Barbarella by film critic Glenn Kenny, a video essay on producer Dino De Laurentiis by film historian Eugenio Ercolani, and an archival behind-the-scenes featurette by documentarian Paul Joyce that feels very 60’s (especially the inclusion of footage of Fonda cooking lunch for her husband, as per the narrator).
Then there are the physical goodies that come with this set. While I wish Tula Lotay’s art from the hard box was used for the double-sided poster instead of her art from the Blu-ray case itself, it’s still great. There are also six postcards and the essay booklet mentioned before, with writing by Anne Billson, Véronique Bergen, and others.
Barbarella is available on 4K and Blu-ray from Arrow Films.
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