It has come to our attention that the rather wonderful Barbarella is being shown at Home cinema in Manchester for one night only as part of the Women in Global Cinema course that has been on from the start of the year. It is followed the week after with a talk about the cult film’s impact by Dr Amy C Chambers Senior Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University. Exploring the relationship between women and science fiction film and how they have been represented. You will be hopefully be introduced to central ideas surrounding women’s depiction in science fiction and consider how changing attitudes towards gender (alongside race and sexuality) are mediated through this stereotypically male-dominated genre. It sounds fascinating but there are only a few tickets remaining for it, so grab them quickly from the link at the bottom of the page!
Mon 11 Mar
Barbarella (Roger Vadim, 1968)
Mon 18 Mar
Discussing Barbarella
From symbolic annihilation and sexy space sirens to putting women on and behind the screen.
Synopsis:
Space adventuress and ‘astronavigatrix’ Babarella (Jane Fonda) is assigned by the President of Earth to retrieve missing scientist Durand Durand (Milo O’Shea), inventor of the Positronic ray, a weapon capable of appalling destruction should it fall into the wrong hands. Barbarella’s ship crash-lands in the Tau Ceti region, whereupon the camp antics are cranked to maximum cheese in aid of this cartoon orgy-come-psychedelic pantomime. From killer dolls to a hirsute child catcher, flesh-eating budgies, a blind angel, the Palace of Pleasure, a sea of sex-and-crime imbued slime and knife-wielding, libidinous villainous, the Great Tyrant (Anita Pallenberg – riotously dubbed, such was her flatness in the role). Based upon Jean-Claude Forest’s Barbarella comic book series, Barbarella functions as both a pinnacle and nadir in fantasy filmmaking, albeit an unquestionable cult classic.
