Icarus XB 1 (1963, Jindrich Polák)

It’s very difficult, even when an effects shot fails, to not be impressed with director Polák’s practical ambitions with Icarus XB 1. The film needs effects shot-it’s about a starship on twenty-eight month voyage from Earth to Alpha Centauri. The first starship to take that trip. So there’s general establishing shot stuff in space but there’s also an exploratory thing going on. Both for the audience and the characters. There’s an enthusiasm in the effects and sets, which the film chucks in the clunky third act when Icarus stops being a rumination on the human condition in starship and instead becomes a thriller.

The film opens with Otto Lackovic starring into the camera and talking about how Earth is dead. Future movie, last survivor, Earth is dead, got it. Then it turns out he’s looking into a security camera and people are watching him and so not last survivor. Then there are the awesome opening titles, which come up during a tour of the ship. Polák shoots Panavision and he composes well for that wide frame but it does mean sometimes it’s more obvious than not the effects aren’t great. Set design effects. And Jan Kalis’s photography is intentionally unforgiving. It’s like Icarus has amazing production design-from Karel Lukas and Jan Zázvorka-but not ability to fully implement it.

But then instead of being about Lackovic, the film is about the ship’s crew in general. First manned mission to Alpha Centuari, sometime in 2300s. Earth has become a lot more peaceful we’ll learn as the crew talks to one another about it. And besides a birthday party with dancing and some of the romance between Ruzena Urbanova and Jozef Adamovic, everything dramatic in Icarus is muted. Marcela Martínková is going to have the first space baby-which husband Jaroslav Mares doesn’t know about and then just turns into him occasionally checking on her. It’s not like they had anything big to do before that subplot. Guys flirt with Irena Kacírková for a while, until the party scene. Not really a subplot. But it does establish Kacírková for later scenes, which is nice, since the film-despite having almost an equal split between men and women-is all about the men. It gets around the men doing things instead of the women by the future just being so chill everyone gets along.

There’s the occasional scene with captain Zdenek Stepánek (who’s fine but narratively immaterial), quirky old guy scientist Frantisek Smolík, alpha male Radovan Lukavský, and crew sociologist and single woman in a leadership role Dana Medrická. Medrická gets the last word on everything, but only because everyone’s always in agreement. It’s kind of sneaky, especially when you notice how Kacírková’s character development stops in the script but Kacírková keeps going with it.

On the trip, there’s some external drama-they discover an alien spacecraft-then get into this trouble with a “Dark Star.” Its radiation is causing chronic fatigue. The film employs an iffy, eratic narration device (presumably Stepánek) and so it’s clear the danger isn’t total. Plus we still haven’t caught up with the first scene, which-it becomes clear pretty quick-is a framing device.

A pointless one too. Effective in the moment, but once the film’s in thriller gear for the last act… kind of a weird diversion. Icarus spends its first hour (running eighty-some minutes) sticking with the cast no matter what. Polák adjusting the narrative distance to do the thriller stuff crowds the cast out of the picture, even when one of the cast actually gets to play lead for a while, in a film otherwise without one.

The acting’s solid. Polák has good impulses and instincts; he definitely facilitates his cast and they’re able to get the future people on a starship but still relatable thing down. Smolík is never as cute as he’s supposed to be. He drags his old robot on the starship with them-even though modern robots are much better and never seen-and the robot is this big clunky thing with a fish bowl head (with electronics in it) and very little personality.

The joke seems to be about the lack of personality but it’s not like Smolík-despite exposition to the contrary-sells an affection for the robot. Similarly the avoidance of the Martínková and Mares pregnancy subplot, particularly of Martínková, who doesn’t even get to have her own scenes, she’s support in Mares’s. Again, the weird presence and avoidance of the women.

Lukavský’s good. Medrická’s good. Kacírková’s good. The interchangeable male bridge crew members are all fine.

Technically, besides the film looking a little dodgy (budgetarily speaking), Icarus is more than solid. Kalis’s photography, Josef Dobrichovský’s editing. Polák’s just a tad impatient of a director. Again, budget thing.

The script-from Polák and Pavel Juráček-is more literate than thorough, more precise than thoughtful. Icarus’s got a good idea, with some strong technical aspects and performances, but the overall execution is just too shaky.

★★

CREDITS

Directed by Jindrich Polák; screenplay by Polák and Pavel Jurácek; director of photography, Jan Kalis; edited by Josef Dobrichovský; music by Zdenek Liska; produced by Rudolf Wolf for Filmové studio Barrandov.

Starring Zdenek Stepánek (Captain Vladimir Abajev), Frantisek Smolík (Anthony Hopkins), Dana Medrická (Nina Kirova), Radovan Lukavský (Commander MacDonald), Irena Kacírková (Brigitta), Otto Lackovic (Michal), Jozef Adamovic (Zdenek Lorenc), Ruzena Urbanova (Eva), Jaroslav Mares (Milek Wertbowsky), Marcela Martínková (Steffa Wertbowsky), Miroslav Machácek (Marcel Bernard), Jirí Vrstála (Erik Svenson), Rudolf Deyl (Ervin Herold), Martin Tapák (Petr Kubes), and Svatava Hubenáková (MacDonald’s wife).