I think the following is safe on unix platforms:

my $q_archive  = quotemeta($ARGV[0]);
my $q_filename = quotemeta($filename);
system("tar $args $q_archive > $q_filename")
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It can also be written as

system("tar $args \Q$ARGV[0]\E > \Q$filename\E")
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quotemeta (called directly or via \Q..\E) will backslash-escape any non-word characters, so the file names can safely contain symbols and spaces.