Litter Box Treasures: IKARIE XB-1 (1963)

In Litter Box Treasures, we focus on a variety of older films which aren’t necessarily classics, but are well-worth discovering.

IKARIE XB-1 (1963)

Starring Zdenek Stepanek, Radovan Lukavsky, Dana Medricka, Frantisek Smolik, Jiri Vrstala. Directed by Jindtich Polak. (86 min).

ESSAY BY D.M. ANDERSON💀

Ikarie XB-1 is a Czechoslovakian science fiction film released in 1963 that was recut and distributed in the US as Voyage to the End of the Universe, with a much different ending tacked on. I first heard about it a few years ago when I was rewatching the Russian classic, Solaris. 

Sometimes when I revisit films, I dig around on the internet for additional info about it when something or someone pops up on screen that I’m curious about. That search down the rabbit hole led me to this one, which is based on The Magellanic Cloud, another book by Solaris author Stanislaw Lem, but was never published in English. So I bought the Blu-ray hoping the movie would be similarly thought provoking.

While not quite as high minded or cerebral as Solaris, Ikarie XB-1 is certainly cut from similar cloth. Its stark visuals are also pretty impressive, especially presented in black & white, with the overall aesthetic is sometimes strikingly similar to that of 2001: A Space Odyssey, released five years later. One can’t help but suspect Stanley Kubrick may have found a little inspiration here. Maybe Gene Roddenberry, too.

For the most part, Ikarie XB-1 is loosely plotted and episodic…but the primary story features a crew of 40 forty men and women on a two-and-a-half year mission to a mysterious planet orbiting another star, Alpha Centauri. But on Earth, 15  years will have elapsed by the time they return, meaning some of their loved ones will be much older.

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Much of the narrative deals with the daily lives of the crew and how prolonged time in space affects them, sometimes adversely. There isn’t much in the way of characterization, but the crew’s efforts to establish a sense of normalcy and routine (sometimes failing) is fascinating. It’s almost as though there’s a collective effort to try and ignore the overall sense of isolation they feel in the vast emptiness of deep space.

There are a few incidents of peril along the way, such as the discovery of a derelict American spacecraft that’s loaded with live nukes (along with none-too-subtle anti-war commentary). Later, and more ominously, the nearby presence of a “dark star” causes a sudden epidemic of extreme fatigue, causing the crew to drift off to sleep…unsure if they’ll ever wake up. 

The visual effects depicting interstellar travel aren’t great, but like Solaris, they adequately serve the story. Conversely, the creative production design goes a long way in helping establish the overall tone (viewers might even feel a similar sense of isolation). Ikarie XB-1 is deliberately paced, but there’s something about the pacing and aesthetic that’s …I dunno, almost relaxing. It’s one of those movies that’s kinda nice to chill out with late at night with all the lights off. 

Though less ambitious - and ambiguous - than Solaris or 2001, fans of those two films will certainly want to seek out the original Czechoslovakian version of the film. The truncated recut by American-International Pictures -  with its cheap Serlingesque twist - isn’t nearly as engaging.