RED SONJA (1985)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*

When I originally saw RED SONJA in a theater, I thought it one of the worst films of the sword-and-sorcery genre, given how ham-handedly the film dealt with Marvel's REH-derived "Red Sonja" character. Now that I've seen many more inferior films in that genre, though, SONJA just seems like a mild mediocrity with some good potential gender-play that went undeveloped.

In the comic book, Red Sonja's origin is purely male-phobic. In her youth Sonja lives a peaceful life with her family until a troop of mercenaries raid her dwelling, killing her family while the leader rapes Sonja. A mysterious goddess then appears to the brutalized woman, bestowing upon the girl superior strength and skill if she'll swear not to lay with any man "unless he has defeated you in fair combat." No reason for this requirement is given, and in the main it's simply a more mythic elaboration of a vow Sonja mentions in her two introductory tales in the CONAN THE BARBARIAN comic.

In contrast to today's politically correct culture, though, in the 1980s it was still conceivable to have a gay/lesbian character be evil, without that character being necessarily perceived as a representative of that sexual persuasion. The script by Clive Exton and George MacDonald Fraser keeps the broad outlines of the comic-book origin, but this time the bucolic Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) is propositioned by an evil lesbian noblewoman, Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman). Not only does Sonja refuse the queen with "disgust," she gives Gedren a facial scar. The evil ruler retaliates by killing all of Sonja's family and letting her soldiers take turns with Sonja. Then she leaves Sonja for dead. Afterwards, a mysterious goddess again gives the girl martial prowess in order to accomplish her vengeance, but does NOT ask her to restrict herself from having sex with anyone but a man who can conquer her in fair fight.

Sonja then apparently goes off to a warrior-dojo to hone her swordplay for some years, which is the first time she references her general antipathy toward men. Unlike the comics-version, this Sonja still has a surviving sister, Varna. As it happens Varna is one of several priestesses in a temple dedicated to a talisman of power given to humankind by the gods. At this point in time, Varna's sisters plan to destroy the talisman because it's become dangerous. They're only waiting for Prince Kalidor (Arnold Schwarzengger) to arrive to oversee the operation-- though he can't very well be involved in the business, since only women can touch the glowing spherical talisman without being disintegrated. Queen Gedren and her warriors invade the temple, kill all the priestesses (except Varna, who escapes) and bear away the talisman.

Kalidor, en route to the temple, comes across Varna, but she's been fatally wounded. She directs the prince to find Sonja at the warrior-temple and bring her back. Kalidor does so, and once Varna has imparted to Sonja the bad news of the talisman's theft, Varna kicks off. Sonja duly thanks Kalidor but refuses any help from him in wreaking vengeance. The faux-Conan of course follows Sonja at a distance and they do end up teaming up, but he's motivated in part by the desire to seal away the talisman, not just a yen for Sonja's loins. It's during one of their exchanges that Sonja claims she took a vow not to lay with a man who couldn't conquer her, with the broad implication that this was her own decision, not an injunction from a deity.

While this is going on Gedren tries to conquer a rival city with the power of the talisman, and she ends up razing it to the ground, so that there isn't a lot of booty to be had there. In the wake of this death and destruction come the film's two comedy relief characters, the arrogant child-prince of the city Tarn (Ernie Reyes Jr) and his bulky bodyguard Falkon (Paul Snith). While I can admire the idea of Sonja and Kalidor being joined by two direct victims of Gedren's evil, neither character is funny or endearing. I suppose the writers thought it would be interesting to force male-phobic Sonja into a position where she had to be a punishing "mother" to a bratty kid, but whenever Tarn or Falkon are on screen, they drag the film to a crawl.

Not that the script would have been much better without them. After the initial setup Exton and Fraser merely put Sonja and her allies through a series of dull S&S exploits until they reach Gedren's hideaway. The only incident worth recording is that after Sonja tells Kalidor of her vow, he challenges her to a duel. The duel is adequate but nothing special, but if it had been handled better by director Richard Fleischer and his crew, the denouement-- in which Sonja and Kalidor fight to a draw, panting in post-coital exhaustion-- could have been the best part of the movie. As things are, the extended sword-duel between Sonja and Gedren is the film's best set-piece, though it's broken up by side-actions for Kalidor, Tarn and Falkon.

SONJA has a cheap look and Fleischer gives everything a bland direction that calls attention to the cheapness. The monotonous musical score is, amazingly, by the virtuoso Ennio Morricone, which only means that even great creators can have off days. In addition to the debits of the Tarn and Falkon duo, Kalidor is a flat good-guy and Schwarzenegger understandably does not seem engaged at all. In addition, he and Nielsen have no chemistry, though at least their sword-duels are somewhat credible because she's almost as tall as he is. 

Sadly, though Nielsen became a decent actress later on, she wasn't skilled enough to embody even the rather muddled Red Sonja character seen here. Whether she's vengeful or sexually titillated, Nielsen just looks dead serious all the time. Her sword-work is decent but it's hard to tell if she could have done better with superior fight coordinators. Sandahl Bergman is the only performer who really sinks her teeth in her role as a narcissistic crazy woman, as obsessed with unleashing destructive female power on the world as Sonja is with assimilating the male disciplines of the sword. (Also, Gedren spares Sonja a couple of times because the queen is still fixated on conquering Sonja sexually, though this is only implied in dialogue.) Still, going by Bergman's spirited performance as the warrior-thief Valeria in 1982's CONAN  THE BARBARIAN, SONJA would have been a much more enjoyable flick if Bergman and Nielsen had switched roles.