Barbarella (1968)

Answer: You say that Barbarella was beyond lame-it was totally atrociously bad and ludicrous. It was released in autumn 1968, when I was 12, and too young to see it at the cinema. I finally got to see Barbarella when I was 18 and it was shown late one night on television. I wholly concur: I thought it was totally, atrociously bad and ludicrous, and my opinion has not changed since.

Rob Halliday

Answer: I concede your point. Perhaps I was being a bit too literal. When Pygar says he has no memory, he may not mean that all past events clear from his mind (in the way that, for example, you could delete a computer file from your laptop). Instead, he might mean he does not dwell on the past, or he does not retain bitterness or anger for past wrongs, or he does not return evil on those who were bad to him. I think the film was based on a comic that ended in pretty much the same way. All the same, I always thought the ending was rather lame. It was as if somebody told Roger Vadim (the director) "hey, this film is supposed to be 90 minutes long, but we've done 89 minutes filming, and we still haven't got an ending." So Roger Vadim got the Black Queen to unleash Matmos and destroy everything. (To be pedantic, Barbarella is 98 minutes long, but I hope you understand what I mean.) Personally I thought the ending of "Monty Python And The Holy Grail", where a police force stops the film, was a similar disappointment.

Rob Halliday

Answer: I don't think his comment is meant to be taken literally. To him, a person's past behavior has no relevance to that particular moment in time (in that the memory of it has been selectively voided in the angel's mind), and therefore it does not affect who he saves.

raywest