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I guess you had to be there.
That was my first, last, and most generous reaction upon watching Gwendoline (known in the States by the longer, stupider title The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak, to match the fact that it's a long, stupid movie). In other words, it's either a movie that has always been terrible despite its cult following or a movie that simply hasn't aged well and, in this case, you "had to be there" in the late '80s when the film's star, Tawny Kitaen (eye candy/sexy hood ornament in a few Whitesnake videos), was the hottest thing on MTV.*
Since Gwendoline is a French-made, tongue-in-cheek "sexploitation" flick based on a bondage-themed comic strip, I am compelled to compare it to another French-made, tongue-in-cheek sexploitation flick (also based on a bondage-themed comic strip) that I happen to adore: Barbarella. I wasn't "there" when Barbarella was released in 1968, but I was "there" in the sense that I discovered it in the late '80s when I was going through adolescence and still determining for myself what appealed to me. Late '60s-era Jane Fonda, it turns out, fit that bill. Tawney Kitaen, not so much.
To anyone who finds both movies ridiculous, offensive, or just downright unwatchable, the differences between them are probably insignificant. But to me these differences distinguish a fun, visually exciting film from an ill-conceived, ill-executed mess of celluloid.
The most critical difference is in the actors. By no means does Jane Fonda give the greatest performance of her career in Barbarella, but even on her worst day Jane Fonda is still, well, an actor. Tawney Kitaen, on the other hand, is a music video model. This doesn't mean a transition from videos to movies is impossible (e.g., Liv Tyler) but the two media are hardly commensurate in terms of acting requirements.
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Then there's Milo O'Shea (Durand-Durand), a consummate character actor whose lively eyebrows possess more energy than the entire cast of Gwendoline--with perhaps the exception of Jean Rougerie (D'Arcy), who plays the Durand-Durand-type (which is to say the creepy, asexual old man) character in Gwendoline.
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Barbarella also has Marcel Marceau (as Professor Ping) and David Hemmings (as Dildano), whereas Gwendoline has, I don't know, Bernadette Lafont (as the queen of the Yik-Yaks), who struck me as a horrible cross between Delta Burke and Megan Mullally.
Despite needing to be rescued by men a few (dozen) times, Barbarella is still the hero(ine) of her own movie. Whereas the "hero" in Gwendoline is Willard, a total jackass who just happens to be good-looking but otherwise has no redeeming qualities. His basic character seems to have been modeled on the swashbuckling, too-cool-to-fall-in-love heroes of early cinema (not to mention the quintessential '80s hero Indiana Jones), but his many attempts to rid himself of Gwendoline so he can go back to being the cool loner are obnoxious and, frankly, unbelievable.
In terms of story, I won't pretend that Barbarella is flawless, but at least it makes sense: Barbarella is tasked, by the president of Earth, to travel to Tau Ceti and retrieve the scientist Durand-Durand, who has disappeared. Barbarella crash-lands on the planet (through no fault of her own, I hasten to add), is terrorized by a pair of evil twin girls, makes love the "old fashioned way" to the man who rescues her, then uses her ship to tunnel through to the other side of the planet where she spends some time in the Labyrinth (to which the "pure" denizens of Sogo, City of Night, are exiled), travels to Sogo, finds Durand-Durand, and gets caught up in a revolution against the Great Tyrant. Mixed in among all these plot points are plenty of scenes in which Jane Fonda changes and/or takes off her clothes (though there is no nudity in the film itself).
In Gwendoline, Gwendoline travels to China to find some stupid, mythical butterfly her father had been searching for when he disappeared. Just off the boat in Shanghai, she's taken captive by thieves who sell her to a local casino owner. During this transaction, Willard randomly busts through a window and kills everyone in the room except Gwendoline. Saving her, it turns out, had nothing to do with his entrance and he wants nothing to do with her. Not taking the hint, Gwendoline begs him to guide her and her maid, Beth, to the place where her father was searching for the butterfly. He relents, reluctantly, only to ditch them at his first opportunity. But the two gals don't give up and stow away on Willard's boat. He tries to ditch them a few more times but Gwendoline's persistent. After finding Gwendoline's father's dead body nowhere near where they planned to look for him, Willard continues to reluctantly guide the girls and they finally make their way to where the butterfly is supposed to be. Just as they actually find one, Beth is taken captive by members of an all-female tribe known as the Yik-Yaks. Gwendoline and Willard dress up as members of this tribe of Caucasian girls (who somehow ended up in the middle of China) and attempt to rescue Beth, only to be captured themselves. The leader of the tribe goofs around with Gwendoline for a while, then plans to mate Willard with her best warrior before killing him, but the one guy who lives with the tribe (D'Arcy) helps Gwendoline to be the one who mates with Willard while he (D'Arcy) activates the volcano upon which the Yik-Yak's city is built, leading to an ending very similar to Barbarella's. Mixed in among all these plot points are several more that I've already forgotten, and lots of half-naked bodies.
If you can't see the difference between these two synopses, then I'm pretty sure I didn't explain them correctly.
But forget the storytelling. Let's talk about style. Barbarella is a pitch-perfect time-capsule that showcases the mod fashions, decor, music, and culture of the 1960s, with some psychedelia thrown in for good measure. Whereas Gwendoline is all thongs, big hair, and even bigger shoulder pads. And the movie's score, by Pierre Bachelet, sounds like a severely watered-down version of one of Vangelis's nature documentary scores from the late '70s. Lots of soft, synthy piano themes with those soft whipcracks and echoey drum claps Prince and Gary Numan were so fond of in those days. Gack.
Then there's the nudity. I'm no prude, obviously, but I'm also not like Jonathan Franzen.** I often find the implication of nudity in films to be more alluring than outright nudity. There's a subtle art to showing skin in movies, and Gwendoline's director, the aptly named Just Jaeckin (whose film career emphasized showing over evoking), is not familiar with this art form the way Roger Vadim is.
Ultimately, I suppose what I find so pointless about Gwendoline is that it seems to be nothing more than a 105-minute-long excuse to show dozens of bare breasts, and in this day and age one doesn't need to watch a 105-minute-long movie if all one wants to see is a bunch of boobs. I mean, if you're reading this then you're already on the Internet--just type "boobs" into Google right now and you'll find all the boobs you can stand.
I realize that wasn't an option in 1985. But Playboy was, as were several other magazines and movies (with some cores harder, or softer, than others). I guess what I'm saying is that unless you're looking to see Tawny Kitaen's bare chest specifically, Gwendoline really isn't worth your time. It certainly wasn't worth mine.
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*Personally I preferred Robert Palmer's band of stone-faced Amazons in his "Addicted to Love" video, even though it was clear they couldn't play their instruments.
**Who wrote an essay that tells readers how he's too sophisticated to be turned on by a woman in her underwear ("Books in Bed," collected in How to Be Alone).
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