`Forbidden Barbie': The Good, The Bad And The Just Plain Odd
------------------------------- Movie review
XXX "Forbidden Barbie: A Collection of Films about the First Lady of Fashion." Little Theatre, 610 19th Ave. E., Seattle, tonight through Sunday. No rating; not suitable for children. -------------------------------
For those who have never visited the Little Theatre, this weekend's "Forbidden Barbie: A Collection of Films about the First Lady of Fashion" offers the grab-bag chances you take whenever you go there.
Reach in and you might land the diamond ring, such as this weekend's rock star biography cast with Barbie dolls. Or you might pull out the plastic puke, such as another featured Barbie movie, this weekend's "The Somnambulist," a highly experimental film of the "weird ergo brilliant" school. Or you might grab the cheap plastic sun visor - you would never buy one for yourself, but it will probably come in handy someday. This weekend's documentary "Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour" is one of those surprises.
The gem in this collection, however, is a must-see. The 43-minute movie, filmed in 1987 with Barbie doll characters, is a documentary of a '70s pop star. For the purposes of this review we'll refer to it as "Big Celestial Body." Due to lawsuits from the musician's estate, the film cannot be shown legally and the Little Theatre has sneaked in a bootlegged video of the original. Suffice it to say that this particular '70s pop star died of an eating disorder and the director went on to make a famous glitter-rock musical film.
If using dolls sounds like a cruel parody of the singer and the pop-lite she sang, "Big Celestial Body" is a sophisticated, compassionate story of a young woman's rise and fall. In a way, it's almost an homage to her. The dolls, with their frozen smiles and frozen bodies, are an ideal vehicle to portray a woman who died pretending to the world that she was happy and thin.
The film is cut with scenes of a nation in turmoil - Nixon, the bombing of Cambodia, student protests - and a recurring package of Ex-Lax. The singer's utopian music takes on an emotional depth and irony when set against the backdrop of her troubled life. "Big Celestial Body" is arguably one of the best short films ever made. Catch it here while you can, because odds are slim the subject's estate will ever allow the film to be shown.
The other films in the Little Theater's Barbie collection unfortunately aren't as astounding. "The Somnambulist," a Super 8 five-minute short by Mia Roozen, is convoluted at its best. A woman sleepwalks through her house to discover a Barbie altar in her refrigerator. The last few minutes the camera spends scrolling down a blurry transcript of an interview with the Barbie Twins, real-life models who suffered from bulimia. You can find the same transcript taped up in the theater's bathroom next to Roozen's tile display where it's much easier to read.
"Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour," a documentary by Susan Stern, treads familiar ground. She interviews Ruth Handler, creator of Barbie and co-founder of Mattel, and various people whose lives have been touched by Barbie. The most interesting bits are the freaks, the women who build S&M dungeons with Barbie characters, cases of Barbie-head ingestion, a Barbie crucifix. The rest is mediocre documentary.
The theater also promises to have an installation by Bob Allen on display, a Rube Goldberg-esque machine in which a Barbie doll splits an Oreo in half with a karate chop. It sounds like the equivalent of pulling out the whoopee cushion.