IKARIE XB-1
d. Jindrich Polak, 1963

26 July 2009

I've been waiting almost 40 years to see IKARIE XB-1, having read about it in Carlos Clarens' An Illustrated History Of The Horror Film and John Baxter's Science Fiction In The Cinema when I was a teenager. It's always nice when a film you've waited a very long time to see not only satisfies your curiosity, but also exceeds your expectations.

IKARIE XB-1 is not an action film, nor does it contain a lot of dramatic tension. It's more of a mood piece with humanistic philosphical shadings. The mood is set largely by the expansive, stylish set design and the expressive faces of the performers; the humanism is embodied in the faces and the ruminative musings of the dialogue.

IKARIE XB-1 is not an action film, nor does it contain a lot of dramatic tension. It's more of a mood piece with humanistic philosphical shadings. The mood is set largely by the expansive, stylish set design and the expressive faces of the performers; the humanism is embodied in the faces and the ruminative musings of the dialogue.

As in FORBIDDEN PLANET, space travel is assumed - there are no "will they succeed in journeying to the stars?" dramatics. Rather, the question is "how will they live and work in space?" It's an advanced theme for filmed SF of the time. I can't think of any previous film to focus so exclusively on the human experience of long-term space travel.

Images and themes in IKARIE XB-1 are resonant with a number of later SF films. 2001 has the most explicit connections, here in the hexagonal corridor, but also in the ongoing portrayal of mundane daily life. A large porton of 2001 is devoted to showing people eating, making small talk, or having uncomfortable territorial interactions with their fellows. Both films also make use of a baby as a symbol of Mankind's first experience of a new, more celestial phase of history.

Although it is widely known that ALIEN borrowed heavily from the derelict spaceship sequence in Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, it is very hard not to connect the Bava film to the even earlier IKARIE XB-1. One has to wonder if Bava saw the film, and it's easy to assume that he must have. IKARIE XB-1's ghost ship is is not laden with monsters or psychic vampires, however, but a vague yet discernable message about 20th century politics.