Barbarella
1968 Jane Fonda
The loving beginning...
Love. Love. Barbarella (Jane Fonda) is all love. A champion astronaut, she lives in 40,000 A.D., traveling through space, vanquishing evil and spreading love at every opportunity. Barbarella's immediate mission is to find DurandDurand. A brilliant Earth scientist, he disappeared with his secret weapon-the Positronic Ray-while on a trip to the North Star. If his discovery fell into irresponsible hands, it could shatter the loving union of the entire universe.
A bizarre planet..
Her spaceship thrown out of control by magnetic storms, Barbarella crash lands on a bizarre planet. Taken captive by a pack of vicious children who torture her with their biting dolls, Barbarella is rescued by Mark Hand (Ugo Tognazzi). A handsome, lonely man, Mark Hand chooses to make love as his reward. He scorns love-making, Earthling style 40,000 A.D.-by comparing psycho-cardiograms, gulping exaltation transference pellets and touching fingers, until maximum rapport is reached. Instead, he chooses the old-fashioned way-in bed. Barbarella is surprised to discover she is an old-fashioned girl after all.
|
The hopeless, despairing Labyrinth.
Dreamily taking off again in search of Durand-Durand, Barbarella's spaceship crashes to a halt in the Labyrinth. A hopeless, despairing place, The Labyrinth is peopled by outcasts from the infamous city of Sogo. They have been condemned only for being good. In The Labyrinth Barbarella meets Pygar (John Phillip Law), an angel with majestic snow white wings who has been blinded by the wicked tyrant of Sogo. Pygar has also lost his will to fly. But a loving visit to his nest by Barbarella soon restores his confidence. Leaving her broken spaceship to be mended by another outcast, Professor Ping (Marcel Marceau), Barbarella flies out of The Labyrinth, carried by a now aerial Pygar.
The infamous city of Sogo...
Fighting off attackers with her mini-missile projector and guided by her mercury-gyro-wrist compass, Barbarella and Pygar arrive in Sogo. Built on a moving lake of Mathmos----a transparent deadly liquid which feeds off evil-the city is ruled by its licentious tyrant, the Black Queen (Anita Pallenberg), aided and abetted by her Concierge (Milo O'Shea). Unable to hide Pygar's snowy wings, Barbarella and the angel are soon taken prisoner. As a punishment, Pygar has his great white wings crucified against a wall. And Barbarella, trapped in a cage, is attacked by hundreds of pecking, fluttering birds. This time Barbarella is rescued by Dildano (David Hemmings), an awkward, stumbling young revolutionary. For five years he has been waiting to make love to an Earthling, Earthling style 40,000 A.D. Barbarella obliges Dildano. She also offers him the use of her Earth weapons, left in The Labyrinth. Returning to the palace, Barbarella is again taken prisoner by the Concierge. This time, he condemns her to death from pleasure in his own invention, the Excessive Machine.
But Barbarella, all innocence and love, does not die.
She burns the machine out.
At last Durand-Durand....
The Concierge turns out to be the missing Earth scientist, Durand-Durand. Armed with his Positronic Ray-it transforms living matter irretrievably into the fourth dimension-his aim is to take over first Sogo, then the planets, then the Universe. Locking Barbarella with the Black Queen in an impregnable chamber of dreams, Durand-Durand takes over Sogo. But before he can be crowned tyrant, Dildano frees The Labyrinth and attacks with Barbarella's weapons. With his Positronic Ray, Durand-Durand turns the revolutionaries into the fourth dimension. But the Black Queen still has one secret weapon. Pulling a hidden switch in the chamber of dreams, she frees the Mathmos and the lake takes over. Oozing and bubbling everywhere, the transparent liquid gobbles up Durand-Durand and all of Sogo.
The loving end
The Mathmos can only live off evil, which makes Barbarella and Pygar exempt. With his right arm, Pygar picks up Barbarella and flies her away to safety. With his left arm he also saves the Black Queen. "What did you save her for" asks Barbarella, "after all the terrible things she has done to you ?" "An angel has no memory", Pygar replies. Love.
Love. All kinds of love are victorious.
|
|
