LE BIG-BANG (BELGIUM/1987/PICHA)

A brazen, unsubtle satire of war, religion and gender issues, Le Big-Bang concerns a Third World War seemingly born out of aimless idiocy (whether Luxembourg could conquer England or not is still up for debate). An all-out nuclear war leaves the planet with just two large landmasses: the U.S.S.S.R., populated by barbaric, buttockless Soviet-Americans, and Vaginia, the territory of the triple-breasted females. Severe mutations have left both genders unusually fragile, the males prone to losing limbs and gonads. As tensions build between the genders, a simple garbage man named Fred is employed as a mediator. Quickly falling for Liberty, the girlfriend of the U.S.S.S.R.’s commander-in-chief, Fred takes her away to Vaginia where he hopes the two can live in peace.

Replete with childish slapstick, sexist caricatures and rudimentary animation, Le Big-Bang is not a particularly hard-going film. As one would expect of a cartoon, the satire is paper-thin, and there is more than enough vacuous sexual comedy to satisfy your average Nuts subscriber. But as dunderheaded as the film is, it does have its moments. The age-old battle of the sexes is given a peculiar new twist as each gender begins to exhibit traits of the other (the male prostitutes in drag being particularly surreal). The film is even bizarrely prophetic – at one point, the Vaginians release a hostage video to the U.S.S.S.R. showing one of their spies being humiliated by a woman. Not one to be remembered, but those looking for a European Ralph Bakshi may be marginally satisfied.