Barbarella. 1968. France/Italy. Directed by Roger Vadim. Screenplay by Vadim, Terry Southern, Claude Brulé, Vittorio Bonicelli, Clement Biddle Wood, Brian Degas, Tudor Gates, Jean-Claude Forest, based on a comic book by Forest. With Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Marcel Marceau, David Hemmings, Ugo Tognazzi. 35mm. 115 min.
Few films have captured the sexy, ludicrous pop aesthetics of the “swinging ’60s” as well as Roger Vadim’s adaptation of Jean-Claude Forest’s comic series. Jane Fonda, who was then married to the French director, plays a space traveler from the year 40000 who lands on the planet Lythion to search for evil scientist (and creator of the Excessive Pleasure Machine) Durand Durand, whose latest invention risks destroying the entire universe. Barbarella’s revealing plexiglass spacesuit was created by Carlo Rambaldi, who also conceived John Phillip Law’s angel wings and tiny creatures with a sadistic interest in Fonda’s body. Fonda subsequently abandoned roles suited to sexual male fantasies to embrace feminist and political activism and the more serious fare of her Oscar-winning role in Klute (1971).