BARB WIRE
US, 1995, 95 minutes, Colour.
Pamela Anderson, Temuera Morrison, Steve Railsback, Xander Berkely, Victoria Rowell.
Directed by David Hogan.
There are many reasons for watching Barb Wire, but cinematic art and fine performances are not two of them. It is often a very corny film, exploitative of both sexuality and violence, exhibiting a sensibility that is sometimes brutal, relishing the rough. It is an example of 90s pop-art.
We know where we sit in the audience immediately – with the gyrating Pamela Anderson, in a leather suit which doesn’t quite fit, especially in the breast area, almost a parody of credits for Bond films and the Bond girls.
But a principal reason for watching the film is that it takes its plot from Casablanca, quite some significant parallels so that we know what might happen – and does. But it is Pamela who takes on the Humphrey Bogart role in the US, 2017, 20 years or more after the film was released, imagining a future America wary of dictatorship, a confederacy government is in charge, a police state. There is, however, a city on the coast which has some kind of freedom, where people might be able to escape to Canada, the city being Casablanca for this film.
Pamela Anderson plays Barb Wire (although her real name sounds particularly Polish) and she runs Hammerhead, a kind of hard rock, hard drinking, pole-dancing, strip joint. She runs it with the assistance of the bald Udo Keir whose name is Curley. He is her confidante and often wise advisor. Also at the Hammerhead is Barb’s brother, blinded in armed resistance attacks, posing as off-hand but still wanting to do something patriotic.
Ingrid Bergman’s role played by Temuera Morrison, fresh from his star appearance in Once Were Warriors. He is on the run with an expert who has defected from the confederacy government and they are looking for special lenses which will enable her to move freely in and out of the free world and the occupied world. Their story parallels that of Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henried, even at the end with Barb letting them go on the plane.
The Nazi atmosphere is created by having Steve Railsback as a very Teutonic commander, merciless, trying to track down the fugitives, visiting the Hammerhead, suspicious of Barb. He is the Conrad Veidt character. The local chief of police, the Claude Rains equivalent, is played by Xander Berkely, on the take, attracted to Barb, doing the right thing to let the fugitives go. He has a final phrase, not the literary equivalent of: this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship but rather: I think I’m falling in love! The Sydney Greenstreet equivalent is a gross money dealer and traitor. And Clint Howard is the Peter Lorrie equivalent. So, quite some attention has been given to the structure of the plot, rather less to the dialogue itself.
The film is based on a Dark Horse comic book, made i in the mid-90s when this kind of film was not yet so popular and not so respectable. And, perhaps the performances to fit into this kind of comic strip background. Certainly the visuals, few holds barred in production design and special effects, are also comic-strip.
The film commands attention because of the presence of Pamela Anderson, a presence rather than a performer, objectified during the opening credits and right throughout the film – and memories of her presence in Baywatch. But, her character seems to be aware of the objectification takes umbrage at anybody calling her Baby. They don’t survive! She goes through all the required motions, acting as something of a double agent, very quick in martial arts and kicking, seemingly selling herself on the street while actually tracking down somebody as a bounty hunter. Having been disillusioned during the uprising in Seattle, with Temuera Morrison not coming back to her as she escaped, she has become embittered, not taking sides – except when her brother is brutally killed, when there is appeal to her better nature, a love of Temuera Morrison, her doing the right thing.
Fans of this kind of film will make allowances. In many ways, most ways perhaps, it is not very good at all. But it is striking to look at and, for film buffs, the parallels with Casablanca will offer some intriguing moments.
