Jindřich Polák's Ikarie XB-1 is a revelation. Seeing it now is like discovering the well-spring from which science fiction films got their visual stylistics from for the next several decades. If the cinema spent the 30s, 40s, and 50s imitating Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), you can see the same impact from Ikarie XB-1 on such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Star Wars (1977), and even Alien (1979): cramped ship interiors; impersonal geometric designs; spaceships waltzing through empty cosmos. The plot may be episodic, but the whole stays congealed thanks to solid atmospherics nearly as sterile as the environments the characters inhabit. It's both a mood piece and an intriguing bit of science fiction. This is a film I must revisit in the future.
9/10
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