Barbarella: Queen of the Universe

Barbarella is sent by the President of Earth to find the missing scientist Durand Durand who may have invented a weapon. Across the course of the movie, her main actions appear to be 1) changing outfits and 2) getting into trouble and requiring a man to rescue her.

Barbarella (Jane Fonda)
Pygar (John Phillip Law)
The Great Tyrant (Anita Pallenberg)
Concierge/Durandd Durandd (Milo O'Shea)
Professor Ping (Marcel Marceau)
President of Earth (Claude Dauphin)
Marcan the Catcher (Giancarlo Cobelli)

Year: 1968
Censorship Rating: M (for nudity, some violence and adult themes)

Let's be honest from the very start: "Barbarella: Queen of the Universe" is camp cult classic, so you are either going to love it or hate it. I have a friend who has named "Barbarella" as his favourite film and once tried to show it to me. Fortunately, I was very drunk at the time and passed out long before the movie hit mid-point. Unfortunately, I was given the opportunity while killing time in a hotel room to watch it again sober. Since it is a comic strip-inspired movie, it falls into Spandex Cinema's domain. I knew that when I started doing this, it wouldn't all be "The Incredibles" or "Road to Perdition" - "Batman and Robin" and "Steel" would also have to be watched. And so would "Barbarella"...

The film begins by zooming in on a spaceship [that looks like a child's educational toy, but perhaps we shouldn't expect too much from the special effects in this film - it was 1968 when this was created]. Inside, an astronaut is disrobing from their space suit in "zero gravity" [such as it is]. Two long, shapely legs are revealed before the helmet's faceshield is retracted to reveal Barbarella. To the strains of a swinging [read: annoying] tune, Barbarella takes off all her clothes [Costume Change: 1]. After floating around nude for a moment, she hits a button that removes "zero gravity". Nigh on immediately after she is contacted by Dianthus, "President of the Earth and Rotating Premier of the Sun System".

[As far this review goes, where possible I've checked up on the names I've used to see if the spelling is correct, but this info wasn't always easy to find. In some cases I've taken what I've heard and just spelt it phonetically. If I've spelt something wrong and it bothers you, please let me know.]

Greeting each other by saying "Love" [like you and I would say "Hello" - wow, it really is the future!], Barbarella takes the call naked (they're using a videophone, naturally, as this is the future) which doesn't bother the President since "this is a matter of state". [It was at this point I noticed that fur must be very fashionable in this universe - Barbarella's living area is covered with it and the President is wearing it. PETA obviously loses some major battles in the next century or so.] The President outlines the background: a scientist by the name of Durand Durand has disappeared recently while on a trip to the North Star into the uncharted regions of Tao Ceti. This is important because Durand Durand has invented the Positronic Ray, which is a weapon.

[Aside: in case the greeting of "Love" didn't warn you, this movie is set in a utopian future where humankind has cast off the primitive urges like war and violence and reality television, now only focus on the good things, like floating around naked in zero gravity. In fact, we are told that the universe has been "passified for centuries".]

Since nothing is known about Tao Ceti (Barbarella: "You mean they could still be living in a primitive state of neurotic irresponsibility?". President: "Precisely") there's a chance that Durand Durand's weapon could be used to destabilise the universe and lead to war [war appears to be a concept that Barbarella komedically has trouble grasping]. Since this perfect future has no armies or police, it's up to Barbarella as a "five star double rated astronavigatrix" to find Durand Durand. Since the only picture of Durand Durand is too vague to use, the President sends Barbarella a portable brainwave detector (via atom transmitter [of course - it's the future]) that will glow when Durand is around. Barbarella is also sent a weapon from the "Museum of Conflict" just in case.

Barbarella puts on a black outfit [CC: 2] and sets course for Tao Ceti. Having set things up with the ship's computer, she goes to sleep for the journey. The ship's computer wakes her just as they arrive at their destination and gives her some purple liquid "nourishment" to drink. Suddenly, things start going wrong.

A swirling light caused by magnetic disturbances (a "magnetic hurricane" apparently) sends the ship's systems haywire. Barbarella manually pilots through some psychadelic light effects, eventually crash landing on a planet.

[Aside: While I'm sure it was cutting edge stuff at the time, the light effects look really, really lame. What's worse is that they will appear again later on in this movie. Also, despite Barbarella being a "five star double rated astronavigatrix", the very first time we see her fly anywhere she crashes into a planet. It's not a very good sign to the audience about Barbarella's abilities if her very first action in the film is to catastrophically fail at something she is allegedly accomplished in.]

Barbarella has landed on planet 16 of the Tao Ceti system that has a breathable atmosphere [and note how the computer measures atmosphere quality by molecule density - ahh, Science!]. Barbarella changes costume [CC:3] and heads outside to an icy wasteland. After a short wander [watch Jane Fonda slip and stumble at one point] she runs into two identically dressed young girls, neither of whom speak English or French. Before Barbarella can adjust her "tongue box" (ie translator) one of the girls beans her unconscious with rock covered with snow. The girls tie Barbarella up and take her back to their camp via skiing behind an ice-ray.

Their camp turns out to be Durand Durand's old abandoned ship, which looks like it also crashed on the planet. Other cute young children appear [to the extent that it looks like a Adorable Moppet Breeding Ground] and help to stuff Barbarella between some restraining bars, while Barbarella protests ineffectually. The children line up some ominous-looking dolls. Barbarella "doesn't want to hurt" the children, but can't escape from the bars. The dolls start moving and are revealed to have metal teeth chomping action^TM and lots of squeaky noises. They start to nip and bite Barbarella, ruining her clothes.

[Aside: Yes, this is as lame as it sounds. Barbarella gets beaten by children, lets them restrain her while saying things like "Don't make me tell your parents" and then is attacked by creepy-looking-yet-still-superlame dolls. I'll repeat: our hero, ladies and gentlemen, got herself whipped by some young children. This is the person we are meant to be cheering for?]

Fortunately for Barbarella, a man and two blackguards (ie guys in black armour) appear. One of the blackguards fires a net over the children and removes them using a whip [which will make your head hurt as the children make squeaky dog-toy noises and the whip squeals electronically] while the man goes over to free Barbarella.

Once her translator works, the man is revealed as Marcan the Catcher (on this planet children run wild until they reach "a serviceable age", then a Catcher brings them back). Marcan hasn't heard of Durand Durand, but suggests Barbarella look in the city of SoGo. He also offers to repair Barbarella's ship since he "services and maintains [his] ice-craft" [which, if I follow the same logic, means that people who can fix their own trucks can also repair space shuttles. Boy, you learn something new everyday]. Starting up a giant fan to create wind for the ice-craft, they set off.

Inside, Barbarella offers to thank Marcan. Marcan suggests making love as a way of thanking him [mmm, classy!]. Barbarella describes the utopian future way of making love (involving psycho-cardiogram compatibility tests and pills) by Marcan wants things the old-fashioned way. After initially resisting out of distaste, Barbarella decides she doesn't want to appear a bad sport and accepts Marcan's offer. Marcan removes his furry hide clothing to reveal a hairshirt of his very own [yuk :-P].

The ice-craft arrives at Barbarella's ship. Marcan sets out to fix the ship, while a satisfied Barbarella changes into a fur outfit [CC: 4]. Marcan does something to the ship and Barbarella sets off for SoGo. [Watch out for the komedy as the tail on Barbarella's fur outfit gets in the way a few times. Oh my sides.] Despite pulsating as a cheap-looking special effect, the stabilisers fail and Barbarella's ship starts to fall back to earth. [Looks like the experiment of having an ice-craft mechanic repair a space shipe ended as expected.] To save herself, Barbarella activates a "terror screw" and burrows underground (though some more psychadelic effects / patterns) and eventually emerges outside. Barbarella changes outfits [CC: 5].

Outside, Barbarella is stunned by a small rockslide falling off her ship. She is found by a figure who appears to wake her by groping her [mmm, even more classy!]. This turns out to be Pygar, who is blind, possesses angel-esque wings and wears only a loincloth. [At this point Pygar indicates that he belongs to a race of aliens who all have wings; later he calls himself an angel. Whatever - he's got wings.] It turns out Barbarella is in the Labyrinth directly under the city of SoGo (aka the City of Night), which is ruled over by a tyrant (or the Tyrant - take your pick). Pygar takes Barbarella to see Professor Ping, who is mainly there to fill in some exposition and to indicate that there is "no doubt" Durand Durand is in SoGo.

[During this bit we get to see the other inhabitants of the Labyrinth, including people stuck in the rock and people you can see through and such. Like many other things in "Barbarella", it doesn't make much sense or have any real point.]

Ping offers to fix Barbarella's ship, but that it could take "hours, days, weeks - who knows?". Barbarella then tries to get Pygar to fly her to SoGo, but Pygar says he's lost the ability to fly. Ping reveals that Pygar's true problem is his low morale (and we get to see Ping work on the ship by tapping on the side of it and listening to the noise it makes). Barbarella goes to see Pygar's home (it's a nest [of course]) but a blackguard appears. It whips Barbarella's gun out of her hand and then uses the whip to entangle her. Pygar manages (by following Barbarella's vocal instructions) to shoot the blackguard and save her. Barbarella thanks Pygar for saving her in much the same way that she thanked Marcan.

The thanking that Barbarella gave Pygar allows him to fly again - as Professor Ping says, "Interesting therapy." Barbarella changes outfits [CC:6].

Pygar flies Barbarella to SoGo, using her as his eyes while she is armed with her "mini-missile projector". On the way up they are met by blackguard patrols in two-men flying craft, but these only ever come two-at-a-time and die fairly easily and in similar looking explosions [thanks to the use of the same footage several times. Also, for someone with little-to-no experience of weapons, Barbarella is a great shot, hitting all targets with 100% accuracy].

Pygar does get hit once, but after fighting through they make it to SoGo. Barbarella hides her now-empty gun in Pygar's loincloth. Despite the apparent risks, Barbarella leads Pygar openly through the streets of SoGo. Pygar senses danger, which Barbarella quickly dismisses. Almost immediately after that Barbarella is dragged into a back alley by some thugs and Pygar is left standing over the body of another murdered woman.

The two men obviously mean Barbarella ill, but are stabbed in the back by an eye-patch wearing woman who finds Barbarella "pretty, pretty, pretty". Barbarella doesn't stop to thank this person for saving her life [a first!] and heads back out the alley looking for Pygar.

[Aside: at this point I could swear I saw some owls outside the alley entrance above some trash cans ala "Futurama". It may have been my eyes deceiving me, but if it wasn't it just makes the "Futurama" owl gag that much funnier.]

Pygar is gone and the people of SoGo are starting to gather ominously around Barbarella. She hears screaming and goes off to investigate (Barbarella: "A good many dramatic situations start with screaming".)

Barbarella finds Pygar at the mercy of a crowd, with things about to turn bloody [at this point, Barbarella is shown to wave at Pygar. Way to wave at a blind man, Barb! Also, for some unintentional amusement, what the absolute ham of a mob leader]. She intervenes and drags Pygar with her into a small room. The crowd doesn't follow them. Unfortunately they have entered a Chamber of Ultimate Solution and are now trapped. Someone else who is in the chamber is used to demonstrate that the things in the suicide chamber aren't fun [and have loud and irritating sound effects].

Barbarella and Pygar are about to tempt fate in trying to get out when the Tyrant's Conceirge lets them out. He explains about how SoGo is built above a lake in which the Matmos (the thing making all the noise in the chamber) lives. The Matmos is liquid living energy that is positively charged and feeds on "negative psychic vibrations" ie evil. The Matmos provides SoGo with heat and light while SoGo feeds the Matmos. [My brain hurts at the lameness of this whole bit. The Matmos will be important later on though.]

During this bit of exposition, Pygar is pulled up in a net. Barbarella is then encouraged to slide down a chute, which she does.

The chute sends her into the palace where she runs into the two girls from the doll episode earlier in the movie. Somehow managing to beat Barbarella down the chute, the Conceirge leads Barbarella to the Tyrant. It turns out the Tyrant is the little "one-eyed wench" who saved Barbarella in the alley. The Tyrant cuts off Barbarella's questions about Durand Durand to reveal that she has had Pygar crucified. Barbarella subtlely retrieves the empty gun from Pygar's loincloth [I'm sure there's a joke in that line somewhere...] and threatens to melt the Tyrant's face off unless Pygar is released. The Tyrant ("My face! My beautiful face!") acquiesces and Pygar is freed, but the Conceirge appears and calls Barbarella's bluff. As a consequence, Barbarella is "given to the birds".

The Tyrant attempts to make love to Pygar, but is fobbed off by Pygar's statement that "angels can not make love - angels are love". Angered, the Tyrant orders Pygar thrown to the Matmos.

[Aside: given that it is pretty apparent that Pygar made love to Barbarella in order to get back his ability to fly, the audience knows that his "angels are love" statement is just a line to make the Tyrant feel better. As in real life, it doesn't work, just like "it's not you, it's me" or "it's late and I'm tired".]

The Conceirge has Barbarella put into a glass cage where she is attacked by [just when you thought this film couldn't get anymore funktastic] blood-thirsty finches and budgerigars who also tear her clothes. Fortunately for her she is spared when a trapdoor opens up in the bottom of the cage and she falls through.

Barbarella ends up in an underground headquarters of the Resistance [watch for the birds coming down the chute too - the things that happened before the RSPCA got involved in movies, hey?]. The Resistance is headed up by Dildano [wearing some fashionable brown shorts] and everything it does appears to be a bit slipshod. Unsurprisingly, Dildano also wants to be thanked for saving Barbarella, but wants to use the "modern" way with the pills. Barbarella is a bit disappointed by this but agrees. Dildano finds his pills ("Five years I've waited for this experience") which they both take, then hold hands. After some slight shaking and rocking, Barbarella's hair curls like Shirley Temple's (much to the disbelief of a watching Resistence member [and the audience]). Dildano's hair also starts to move and smoke shoots his fingers.

In short order:

1. Dildano gets a stupid hair style;

2. it is revealed that the Resistance needs more weapons;

3. Dildano indicates that he got the pills off Durand Durand;

4. Barbarella changes costume [CC:7].

Dildano wants Barbarella to help the Resistance. He bargins that he will provide assistance in capturing the Black Queen (which is another name for the Tyrant) who will lead to Durand Durand in return for Barbarella's weaponry and space ship support.

They contact Professor Ping. Ping indicates that the ship is fixed and that he has moved it to keep it safe from the blackguard. [This particular coversion has the komedy of the incredibly long password (actually a name of a Welsh town) and of a botched sign-off.] Dildano then gives Barbarella an invisible key [again, as lame a it sounds] and a map. The key will let her into Tyrant's Chamber of Dreams, which is surrounded by an invisible wall (Dildano: "Only an invisible key can open an invisible wall"). Barbarella leaves via a poorly functioning travel tube.

She ends up in the hedonistic area of the palace (as one point smoking 'Essence of Man' from some contraption) but doesn't last long before she is seen and recaptured by the Conceirge. Barbarella ends up in a musical torture machine that resembles a harpsichord [and by torture, I mean the music - the Conceirge brutalises some pretty well-known music]. The machine strips Barbarella's clothes and will apparently pleasure her to death - "At the crescendo you will die ... of pleasure!" intones the Conceirge. [As this scene moves on, the Conceirge moves away from abusing classical music to a pretty goofy jam session.] However, Barbarella is too much for the machine and it breaks down. The Conceirge is angered by this and threatens to show Barbarella "the wisdom of the lash". At this point Barbarella sees the portable brainwave detector [remember that?] glowing - the Conceirge is Durand Durand. His aged appearance is due to the influence of the Matmos (he's "aged 30 years" apparently).

Barbarella offers to rescue Durand Durand, but he won't go, having been enticed by the "truth and essence, dignity, the nobility of pure evil". Durand Durand still has the Positronic Ray, but needs someone to do away with the Black Queen for him - apparenly the people of SoGo will kill whoever kills the Black Queen. (For the record, the Positronic Ray causes things to be "de-minimalised at the fourth level" and "replaced in the fourth dimension irretrievably". Ahh, Science!). While putting on a new costume (CC:8), Barbarella offers to deal with the Black Queen, and convinces Durand Durand when he finds out she has the invisible key.

At the Chamber of Dreams, Barbarella 1) runs into the invisible wall [komedy!] and 2) gets locked inside by Durand Durand where "the Matmos will devour" her. Apparently "nothing can stop" Durand Durand and while it's only SoGo today it won't be long before he'll be "master of the universe". Cue insane laughter. [Having just said all that out loud, anyone want to bet that it won't come true? Anyone want to challenge the Vocal Reversal rule?]

Barbarella struggles through the psychadelic dreams of the Black Queen (and of Pygar, who is also in the Chamber) to warn the queen of Durand Durand's plot. [For the record, the Black Queen has three Costume Changes - one per scene she appears in.] The Black Queen thinks they are "doomed... doomed" since Barbarella entered the Chamber and disturbed her dreams, because this will awaken the Matmos. The Black Queen starts up an All-Seeing Camera [which is wherever it needs to be to see what's happening in the script]. They see Durand Durand's coronation [boy, that happened very quickly - the Black Queen isn't even disposed of yet!] being interrupted by the Resistance uprising in the Labyrinth. Durand Durand sends the blackguards to finish off the trouble-makers, only to have them all destroyed thanks to Barbarella's weapons.

Given it is very nearly the end of the film, Durand Durand starts up the Positronic Ray and slaughters everyone in the Labyrinth, including the Resistance forces [all three of them]. At this, the Black Queen activates a Doomsday Weapon [every top-rung evil person in this movie has their own Ultimate Weapon^TM apparently] that frees the Matmos.

[Aside: who'd of thought that living on top of a giant mobile life-consuming organism that lives on evil would ever become a problem?]

Instead of being consumed by the Matmos, Barbarella and the Black Queen are surrounded by a bubble created to "protect the Matmos from [Barbarella's] innocence". Durand Durand starts to be consumed by the Matmos, despite screaming, "I am the master of the Matmos," and threatening to destroy it. Durand Durand and SoGo itself is consumed by the Matmos [the citizens of SoGo can be seen runnning around like ninnies] and according to Durand Durand, his death means that Earth "loses its last great dictator" [yeah, I was just holding back the tears too].

Due to Barbarella being "so good she made the Matmos vomit", Barbarella and the Black Queen end up outside the city. Coincidently they end up right next to Pygar, who Barbarella revives by flapping his wings for him. Pygar then takes Barbarella and the Black Queen in his arms and they fly off over the Matmos towards Barbarella's ship. (Oh, and apparently Pygar saves the Black Queen because "an angel has no memory"). Cue an irritating catchy "An Angel is Love" song [a big thanks to Bob Chewe and Charles Fox for getting this song stuck my head for days] and that's the end of "Barbarella, Queen of the Universe".

I don't like 'camp' as a concept. To me, saying a film is camp is just shorthand for saying "badly acted, worse script, terrible costumes, done in the 1960's / 70's, it's a joke that the cast and production are all in on so everyone hams it up or something so overbearingly serious that it is ridiculous". To me, this isn't a good thing. Some people think that camp is so bad that it's good; I find camp to be so bad that it's just bad.

So "Barbarella" was never going to be my cup of tea. While I can admire the good (Jane Fonda does the best job she can with the material she's given) the bad was so much in "Barbarella" as to overwhelm me and make me pray for the end (of the film or of me, whichever came first). I found "Barbarella" to have an incredibly lame plot, stupid characters and eye-wounding costumes. It was also dull to watch - although the aim of the film is to find Durand Durand, Barbarella only really does it by accident. It's almost like the scriptwriters suddenly realised they had forgotten the whole motivation (such as it is) for the film and jammed it in at the end just to wrap everything up. Not that I cared by that point - I was just glad it was over.

For me, "Barbarella" is a perfect example of the Rule of Feminine Incompetence. This movie law states that women (especially those in lead roles) aren't allowed to be even vaguely good at what they do, regardless of their supposed expertise. They will need to be rescued / helped (usually by a man) if they are to succeed. Given that I can't think of a single important thing that Barbarella manages to do by herself and the number of times she is rescued by men across the course of this film, she is made to look incompetent almost purely on the grounds that she is a woman.

To add injury to this insult, the back of the DVD case calls Barbarella 'a female James Bond'. Sure, she's exactly like James Bond, if Bond:

• Met with M in the nude

• Couldn't do a single thing for himself other than change clothes

• Gets beaten and outsmarted by children

• Required people he'd just met (and had no prior association with) to help him for no good reason

• Had sex with lots of people

• Saved the day by default rather than by skill or any sort of planning.

I can only see one attribute on that list where Barbarella and Bond are comparable. While James Bond may have faced some pretty iffy scripts in his time, none of those that I'm aware of debase him to that extent. Heck, Barbarella isn't even a female Austin Powers given that Powers is at least shown to be an effective spy / foil to his enemies - Barbarella doesn't even get that dignity!

I'm glad that I can now say that I've seen "Barbarella: Queen of the Universe" (which, by the by, must be one of the most misleading titles ever! She's not the Queen of anything!). But I'm much more heartened by the fact that I'll never have to watch it again. Ever.

[But then... in searching around the internet for information to add to this review, I came across the horrifying news that a modern remake of "Barbarella" is being considered, with Drew Barrymore attached to it. However, I couldn't find any dates for this news, so hopefully this just a mythical project that won't ever happen.]

The original source is an apparently popular french comic created by Jean-Claude Forest. Given that I'm not going to learn french just for the purposes of comparing "Barbarella", I'll just say that the panels I saw closely resembled the images seen in the movie. Whether or not the same camp flavour is part of the comic I can't say.

I wouldn't watch this again if you paid me. Well, I would, but you'd have to pay me a lot. Even seeing Jane Fonda naked doesn't make up for the short-comings of this movie.

This film should be retitled "Barbarella: Queen of the Funktastic". All hail Her Majesty!

Date of review: 14 April 2005