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Barbarella

1968, Movie, NR, 98 mins

Barbarella: Review

Primarily silly piece of sci-fi sexploitation based on the adult comic-strip created by French artist Jean-Claude Forest. Vadim's direction is pretty tedious, and his main aim seems to be titillation. Jane Fonda plays a 41st-century space adventuress who begins the film in a capsule heading for the planet Lythion. Upon landing she befriends counter-revolutionary Hemmings, with whom she has sex by taking pills and touching fingers. She meets blind angel Law, who becomes her hero, although he himself is subjected to rape by Pallenberg, the Black Queen. A host of other weird creatures assail and jeopardize the pair as they make their way through labyrinthine worlds within this world, ostensibly to lift the spirits of Law so that he will be able to fly once again. This he does, and Fonda rides his back as they escape the machinations of Pallenberg and her hideous minions. Most of this is soft-core nonsense, but snappy dialogue and design--as well as the striptease routine that Fonda performs behind the opening credits--have made it something of a cult favorite.