Ikarie XB 1

The year 2163. The ship Ikarie XB-1 sets out for a distant star; the aim is to see whether there is life there. The crew is large and the voyage will take years. Daily life is set up on board: they exercise, they dance, a child is born, there are arguments. On the way they come across an old abandoned ship; when they board it, the vessel is from the twentieth century and its crew is dead. Then radiation from a star strikes the ship and the crew falls one by one into a stupor. Jindřich Polák directs. Zdeněk Štěpánek and Radovan Lukavský are in the cast. It is a Czechoslovak production. The source is Stanisław Lem's novel The Magellanic Cloud; the adaptation is not faithful and the script was largely written for the film. It brought an unusual approach to the science fiction cinema of its time; there is no monster, no war, and the psychology of the crew is at the centre. The design of the ship and its interiors anticipate the shape seen in later science fiction; its influence on 2001 is often cited. For American distribution the film was shortened, renamed and shown with an entirely different ending; the original came into circulation years later. The black and white photography in wide format is its strongest side. Its limit is pace; the narrative is slow and the plot episodic. Who it is for: viewers who like classic science fiction and Eastern European cinema. Who it is not for: it is slow, the effects belong to their period, and the narrative is scattered.