Sunday July 14th 2013, Psychedelic Film Night: Barbarella (Roger Vadim, France, 1968, 98 min.) English. Door open at 8pm, film begin at 9pm.
1968 is well known for its revolutionary fever, but less so for its plastic cinematic futurism. Both Roger Vadim’s science-fiction tale Barbarella (1968) and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) present us with their visions of the future, and in the words of The Graduate (1967): that future is “Plastics”. The heroine (Jane Fonda) is a liberated space goddess of the 41st century, who is assigned by the President of Earth (Claude Dauphin) to retrieve Doctor Durand Durand (Milo O’Shea) from the planet Tau Ceti. Durand Durand is the inventor of the Positronic Ray, a weapon. Earth is now peaceful, and to stop these weapons falling into the wrong hands, Barbarella sets out to find the scientist and save the world. That is, until she crashes on Tau Ceti.
Barbarella was described by Roger Vadim as “a kind of sexual Alice in Wonderland of the future”. The outfits, as much as the kitsch furnishings, are incredible – and created by Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne using rhodoid (an unusual plastic made from purified cellulose), which was both silky and pliable. Much of this cultural forecasting now looks wonderfully out-of-date. Cultural evolution has accelerated so quickly that a 1960’s vision of the 41st century looks remarkably like 1968.
Film night at Joe’s Garage, warm and cozy cinema! Doors open at 8pm, film begins at 9pm, free entrance. You want to play a movie, let us know: joe [at] squat [dot] net
