IT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM SHELF!

Up until a couple of years ago, the number of Czechoslovakian films I had seen totaled up to around 0.25 (having watched a portion of Milos Forman’s The Firemen’s Ball on a UHF channel when I was way too young to appreciate it).  However, thanks to Second Run, a British boutique video label dedicated to art films and classics, I am now solidly in single digits.  While Second Run is situated in the United Kingdom, most of their Blu-ray releases have been Region Free, allowing cinephiles worldwide to discover and enjoy the forgotten classics that they’ve restored and distributed.  Amongst their releases in the past couple of years were pristine restorations of the Czech fantasy films of Karel Zeman, Invention For Destruction a.k.a. The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958) and The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1961), both of which made my “Picks of the Year” lists in the years of their releases.   Now, most recently, Second Run has released a Region Free Blu-ray of the magnificent 1963 Czech science fiction film Ikarie XB 1 from a 4K restoration of the original elements.

Science Fiction films tend to fall into two categories — Smart Sci-Fi, which leans as heavily on the science as the fiction (such as The Andromeda Strain, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, and even Star Trek) versus Space Operas, which tend to lean more heavily on the fiction and fantasy elements (i.e. Flash Gordon, Star Wars, Serenity, and Guardians of the Galaxy).  Being that Ikarie XB 1 was adapted from the novel The Magellanic Cloud by Stanisław Lem, the same author that provided the source material for Solaris (1971), it should come as no surprise that the Czech film falls strongly in the “Smart Sci-Fi” category.  In fact, the film feels like the missing branch in the family tree between Forbidden Planet (1956) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

The title, Ikarie XB 1, refers to the name of a large, exploratory spacecraft, which embarks in the year 2163 on a mission into deep space to search for alien life on the planets orbiting Alpha Centauri.  While the round trip will take the crew 28 months, due to relativity, the astronauts’ loved ones on Earth will have aged 14 years during their absence.  The crew, made up of scientists, mathematicians, engineers, doctors, historians, and artists of both sexes and various ages, have to deal with the loneliness, boredom, and close quarters of life in space; but that is nothing compared to the unexpected threats that await them.

The pace of Jindřich Polák’s film is initially a tad slow, but it is deliberately so, as we get to know the various crew members and experience their adjustments to the tedium of space travel.  It is a slow build, similar to what Kubrick would achieve five years later with 2001: A Space Odyssey.  However, the audience’s patience is well paid off.  At around the half-hour mark, the ship makes an unexpected discovery (which I will not spoil).  From that point on, the film ratchets up the tension, suspense, and stakes, leading to a very satisfying conclusion.

The black & white widescreen cinematography is beautiful and the set design is creative (although the empty space on the ship is a bit too vast to be believable).  Plus, the model work and animation used for depictions of the ship and its shuttles, as they navigate the sea of outer space, are wonderfully quirky.  Sometimes it is more fun watching special effects that aren’t what we would consider state-of-the-art today.

The small portion of U.S. audiences that are familiar with this film have probably seen the heavily edited and revised version released by American International Pictures under the title Voyage to the End of the Universe.  A spoilerly explanation of the revisions in the AIP version is listed below in the “Trivia” section.  Happily, Second Run’s new Blu-ray of Ikarie XB 1 is the complete, original Czech version.  I would highly encourage fans of “Smart Sci-Fi” to add this title to their collections.  It is a gem of a rediscovery.

Czech/B&W-88m./Dir: Jindřich Polák/Wr: Jindřich Polák and Pavel Juráček (based on the novel The Magellanic Cloud by Stanisław Lem)/Cast: Zdeněk Štěpánek, Radovan Lukavský, Dana Medřická, Miroslav Macháček, František Smolík, Jiří Vršťala, Otto Lackovič, Svatava Hubeňáková, Irena Kačírková, Martin Ťapák, Marcela Martínková

For fans of: If you love smart science fiction, then this film is for you.  Fans of films such as Forbidden Planet, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Solaris, as well as Trekkers who love the original series of Star Trek should find Ikarie XB 1 very stimulating.

Video: Second Run’s Blu-ray release of Ikarie XB 1 is a fantastic package. Presented from a new 4K restoration of the film from original materials by the Czech National Film Archive, the scope black & white photography is crisp, and the sound is clean.  Scratches and debris have been cleaned up, but the reel change markers in the upper right corner of the screen have been retained.  I actually found this refreshing, as it made me feel more like I was watching a screening of the original film reels.  Due to the wide-angle lenses used to photograph the picture, there is occasional minor horizontal stretching or distortion of the image, but that is true to the original film.  It is the style of the image rather than an error.

The film is supplemented by a nice group of extras:

• A filmed appreciation by author and critic Kim Newman.
• The Most Ordinary of Occupations (Nejvšednější povolání, 1963) – a short film about science and mathematics by Josef Kořán.
• Voyage to the End of the Universe – opening credits and end-sequence from the alternative, dubbed US version.
• Booklet featuring a substantial essay by writer and film historian Michael Brooke.
•  Ikarie XB 1 trailer
• Voyage to the End of the Universe trailer
• Image gallery.
• Region Free Blu-ray (A/B/C)
• Easter egg

Streaming: At the time of this review, Ikarie XB 1 (1963) was not available on any of the major streaming services.

More to Explore: Second Run has lots more Czech cinema to explore.  In addition to the previously mentioned fantasy films of Karel Zeman, Invention For Destruction a.k.a. The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958) and The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1961), they’ve released a number of well regarded Czech films in a variety of genres, including the Oscar-winner The Shop on the High Street (1965), the anarchic surrealist classic Daisies (1966), and the satiric horror film The Cremator (1968) .  Admittedly, I have to check these out myself.

Trivia: American International Pictures released the film in the United States in a greatly altered form as Voyage to the End of the Universe.  WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!  AIP removed 26 minutes of footage from the original film, including any negative depiction of Western society (including a sequence in a dead spacecraft with the bodies of dead capitalists, nerve gas, and an atomic weapon).  A Twilight Zone-style ending was tacked onto the AIP version to reveal that the astronauts were aliens traveling to Earth, rather than Earthlings traveling to Alpha Centauri.  Finally, the names of the cast and crew were altered to look like American names.

For more info: The early Stanisław Lem novel The Magellanic Cloud (a.k.a. The Magellan Nebula), which was adapted as Ikarie XB 1, has not been reprinted for years, apparently at the author’s request.  However, most of Lem’s other major works are available in English translations.  For more info on the author, I suggest visiting Stanisław Lem – The Official Site, which is an online repository of biographical information, descriptions and links to the books, articles, and more.