Onatopp of things: Famke Janssen and the ultimate male fantasy

A well-known symptom of "getting old" (or growing up) is seeing that your universe is also getting old. Pierce Brosnan, my childhood and favourite James Bond, is pushing 70. Izabella Scorupco will be 50 soon. And today, Famke Janssen celebrates her 55th birthday. This led me to write a few lines about her character Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye and the importance she had along with the movie itself.

Of course, I have covered most of Xenia in my book The World of GoldenEye, released last June. I was also interviewed by Alison Blaire for her Accept No Substitute page dedicated to this memorable character. But I wanted to write some lines about how Miss Onatopp is the live representation of sexuality, how she evokes the ultimate male fantasy in every men of every age.

Famke Janssen is 26 years older than me. By the time GoldenEye was released, she was 30 and I was 5, although I first knew about her existence at the age of 7, since I watched the film on TV some two years later after it debuted on the silver screen. In GoldenEye, Xenia has steamy encounters with two men: Admiral Farrell, pushing 60, and James Bond, aged 42 if we take into account Pierce Brosnan's age at the time of filming. It is open to debate the question if she did or didn't have a sexual clash with Alec Trevelyan, this is suggested by the way she pats him in the shoulder during the train scene. Assuming they did, we have to add a 36-year-old man to the list of those who have fell under her spell.

However, it is important to note that -as far as the movie is concerned- Xenia uses sex only as a weapon. There's no indication that she actually has a feeling (romantic or sexual) for any of the men she approaches. Admiral Farrell is really the only man she has proper sex with and she kills him by crushing him with her legs. She tries to do the same move with Bond, and besides the increasingly sexual tension, they don't really have sex. It is perhaps the sadism of killing someone what excites her and not the attraction to the opposite sex, but either way, I do believe she put the idea of what sex is in the mind of every GoldenEye fan.

The first time we see Xenia, she drives a red Ferrari car, challenging Bond to a race as a representation of the Devil tempting 007 to make a mischief, which Bond -the "innocent kid"- does while defeating her. The way she provocatively looks at him, taking out her sunglasses and smiling, is more than an invitation to race. It's an invitation to "have fun". It's the kind of invitation a teenager would have from an older woman to discover... what some men and woman do when they are alone and attracted to each other. Picture The Summer of '42 and Hermie being obsessed and curious about sex and finally achieving it with an older, experienced, woman. I dare say that look of invitation broke the fourth wall. It was not an invitation to Bond, but an invitation to the watcher. A gesture so remarkable that she immediately wins the battle against the good girl Natalya Simonova we come across later. This is, of course, talking in male codes. I'm just evaluating physical attraction between a man and a woman.

Then we see her in the Casino de Monte Carlo playing the archetypical rich socialite. A black dress with a pronounced neckline, red lips, smoky eyes, jewellery and a cigar. Bond meets her again, plays some baccarat, defeats her once more and gets to know her as they indirectly share some sexual double entendrés ("Straight up, with a twist", she orders her drink). Although Bond was urged to investigate her, suspecting she had some criminal ties, the audience was expecting more. A kid/teenager watching the scene would have certainly expected to take her to a more intimate place, but... she isn't available. Her date, Admiral Farrell, appears and takes her out with a watchful eye that barely registers Bond.

Then, we become involuntary voyeurs of a mind-blowing sexual act that culminates with Farrell dying, paying his pact with the Devil: he wanted a young girl, not usually available for someone of his age, and he had her - but that's the last thing he did. As we are well aware, Xenia uses him to help Ourumov take his identity and gain access to the Tiger demonstration on the La Fayette warship, in order to steal the EMP hardened helicopter. The next step involves ditching the pilots. This time, Xenia won't use sex, but seduction. The pilots face that experience of youngsters on a disco seeing an attractive girl apparently into them until they finally find out she wasn't into them at all. She was hitting on another guy, she changed her mind, or she just wanted to play along. Bernard Jeaubert and Françoise Brouse are dumped by two single shots of Xenia to their heart.

Time for some fetish: in the following scenes, we have Miss Onatopp dressed into a French Navy overall and covering her head with the mandatory helmet, a way to prevent the viewers notice she has taken the place of one of the pilots, but also a way to appeal to this sexual fantasies. You know, school uniform, police uniform, nurse uniform, name them. As the helicopter lands in Severnaya, Xenia has somehow changed into a military uniform, tight and in green leather. 

Let's jump to the other major scene in which she appears: the spa room of the Grand Hotel Europe, where she tries to kill Bond. This is the moment the kid has been expecting, his (visual and symbolic) sexual debut: Xenia appears with a loosen bathrobe, without makeup and looking natural, to tempt 007. She has some success, as the secret agent (sharing the same sexual drive as the viewer) let's go of the gun. He's in ecstasy, this beautiful women is finally kissing him and embracing him, in a quiet and steamy place... but she ultimately reveals her nature and begins to attack: she bits Bond's lip, kicks him and tries to crush him. However, 007 resists the temptation and holds her at gunpoint, as if saying Vade Retro Satana. Later, he completes that by knocking her out with a blow to her neck, a way to drift his mind away of the lustful temptation.

Xenia will later make a few background appaerances, yet they are memorable. One of them is sucking the forefinger of her right hand while sexually teasing Bond, who is more concerned about Natalya, held at gunpoint by Ourumov. By that point of the film, Bond became the "experienced man" who knows about this deceitful woman and her spell has no effect on him, because he uses his head. Differently, the young viewer may still feel attracted to her, still falling under her spell, still wishing to have sex with her even knowing the dangers of it.

On a Cuban jungle, Bond and Xenia have their final encounter, which is of course sexually charged. She kicks Bond, licks his face and procedes to strangle him with her legs while gasping. 007, on the other hand, is resistant. He seems to forget he's fighting against a sexually charged woman and his instinct of survival primes. he defends himself with everything he can until he's momentarily saved by the "good girl", who attempts to hit Xenia with a rotund tree branch. She blocks the attack and headbutts Natalya. It is Bond who finally terminates the evil angel Onatopp by crushing her against a tree, after shooting down the helicopter holding her to the ground.

My question is... I was the only one sad to see her dying? Even though she was evil, had my (premature) sexuality influenced so much in me that I was actually sad when she was gone? Placed it on a romantic subtext, did I love Xenia more than what she loved me?

Happy birthday, Famke fatale!