Barbarella is a famous French comic-strip created by Jean-Claude Forest. In the late sixties, it was turned into the wild sci-fi film starring Jane Fonda, in one of her sexiest, and most iconic roles.
Fonda certainly looked very sexy in her plastic space suit, and there was definitely a lot of arresting imagery and sets that made up her alien world.
In terms of weird pop art design, Barbarella was very much of its time, the late sixties that is, and good, bad or indifferent, it definitely has its place in sci-fi history. Filmed in Italy, and released in the States by Paramount in 1968, Barbarella is now coming out on Blu-ray on July 3, with a list price of $24.99.
Paramount is calling the film “a kind of sexual Alice in Wonderland of the future, replete with psychedelic set designs, far-our characters and an outrageously entertaining story set amongst the stars. Who can perform a zero-gravity striptease, seduce an angel and still have time to save the universe? Sexy, sultry, space adventurer Barbarella, that’s who!”
The Barbarella Blu-ray features include 1080p high def transfer, English Mono Dolby TrueHD sound, and the film’s original trailer. It should also be mentioned that Barbarella is where the band Duran Duran got their name from because Durand Durand was a character in the film, and the poster also had great artwork by renowned fantasy artist Boris Vallejo.
It will also be interesting to see how audiences today will react to Barbarella today. Jane Fonda has certainly come a long way since, so have comic movies and science fiction flicks. Whether today’s viewers will find it an amusing pop culture artifact, kitschy fun, or a landmark for female action roles will all of course be in the eye of the beholder.
