Barbarella – Astronavigatrix, Wonder Woman, and Super Agent – is hired by the President of Earth to find the mad scientist Durand Durand and stop him from using a super laser weapon that threatens the peace of the galaxy. With her “super power” – self-dissolving clothes and an almost infinite sexual energy – she finally gets on the bad guy’s trail …
Surreal worlds, absurd dialogues, chuckyesque murder puppets, probably the first vicious twins in film history, killer parakeets and rays that pull sledges through snowy landscapes. Pleasure pills and pleasure machines that torture their victims to death with excessive lust. Above all, a thick layer of icing sugar and butter cream in the form of pop art costumes and a set design by fashion designer Paco Rabanne, who seems to constantly balance his style on a thin bar of over-the-top art. Women’s rights activist Jane Fonda distanced herself early on from the work of her then-husband Roger Vadim: hardly empowering and too sexually charged. Nevertheless, this rather tongue-in-cheek comic-strip filming marked her international breakthrough.
Alexander Streb
Translated by Carlos Hartmann
