My Cultural Diet

In the year 2163, the crew of the starship Ikarie XB-1 have left Earth to travel to a distant planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. Although the trip will only take them a little over two years, the effects of faster-than-light travel means that 15 years will pass on Earth — a fact that has left some of the crew concerned. That, combined with dangerous space phenomena, continues to raise the crew’s stress levels. But things reach a potential breaking point after they discover a derelict spaceship and choose to explore its mysteries. Inspired by a Stanisław Lem novel, it’s tempting to compare Ikarie XB-1 to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both films take a much more serious approach to the rigors of space travel, and both films also feature elaborate production design. (Indeed, there’s some reason to believe that Ikarie XB-1 actually influenced Stanley Kubrick’s film.) Ikarie XB-1 suffers a bit in comparison though, as it tries to balance headier themes (e.g., criticism of 20th-century excess, relativistic physics) with more standard sci-fi tropes (e.g., talking robots, fancy ray guns). It doesn’t always work, but for sci-fi fans, Ikarie XB-1 is worth checking out to see how the genre developed in the Eastern Bloc.

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