On the Silver Globe

I finally managed a track down a copy of this film after looking for it forever. And not only did it live up to expectations, it surpassed them in every way possible! I had no idea what to expect from a Polish sci-fi film from the 70ies and the first thing I noticed were the lavish costumes, extremely impressive sets and great make-up. If someone would attempt to pull off something similar in the US today it would cost insane amounts of money. This is a film by Adrzej Zulawski so it figures that there is a lot of philosophical dialog and religious metaphors aplenty. In a way I was reminded of the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky and maybe if he had made his adaptation of DUNE, as he planned for many years, it would have turned out to be something like THE SILVER GLOBE. The copy of the film I watched was taped from the German TV station 3 Sat who actually paid for subtitling the film in German! The rather poor picture quality only stressed the otherworldly beauty of the images. Often the film felt like a transmission from another time or maybe even another planet. It is a truly unique gem, even in it's unfinished form, and a film that is overdue for rediscovery.

A really grotesque sci-fi story with some excellent visuals - sadly, the movie was never really finished (production took place in 1976/1977 and was stopped by Polish authorities), in 1988 Silver Globe was presented at the Cannes Film Festival. Because director Zulawski was only able to complete about four-fifths of the film, he used street shots of Warsaw and Kraków to fill the missing parts, while he explains off-screen what is happening according to the script. Despite that unlucky fact, On the Silver Globe is still a really fine journey, but be warned, it is for sure no movie for adepts of Star Wars, Star Trek or such sci-fi movies but for those who hunt after something special. If you dig movies like The Holy Mountain (1975), Zardoz (1974), Stalker (1978), Hard to Be A God (1989, or the version from 2013), O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization (1985) and such pearls, Silver Globe may just be the right kind of movie for you. My rate: 7 + 1 for the visuals.

Crazy original film.. trying to encapsulate almost everything about the human condition.. from simple human emotions, trust, love.. to opposition, hierarchy, religion, politics..how we perceive the world, the relationship between man and a woman, heavy philosophical and transcendental scenes.. the first 30 minutes are almost unbearable though.. at one point it got so boring, i could not sit still, i was going mental.. some people left the cinema.. mainly because of the heavy overly poetic and dramatic dialogue.. the rest is a joy for the imaginative mind.

It is based on a Sci-Fi novel, written by the grandfather of Zulawski. The novel had a great influence on Stanislaw Lem as he was growing up.

Mind-blowing stuff. A must-see for the serious cinephile.

first off, the copy of the film that i was able to track down, was in polish with a very difficult to follow English voice-over narration/dubbing that spoke everyone's lines. Yet, despite the tedious dubbing issue and the frustrating image quality on the bootleg i tracked down, the wonderfully unsettling lunacy of the whole affair was able to shine through and really hit home for me.

One earlier reviewer, in an attempt to discredit the film, described the actors' performances as similar to the ramblings of mental patients. I thought about it a bit, and concluded that, yes, all of the performances did have an element of hysteria and frenzy that someone might attribute to psychotics, but for me, thats part of what made the picture so extraordinarily unsettling (in the best way). The point-of-view style of camera-work and delivery that carried the first half of the film was really unnerving. The entire thing had a dizzying sense of madness that threatened to crumble at almost any moment, but managed to hold together long enough (around 3 hours) to hit you with the savage power of its staggering ending.

It had more going for it than simply being "crazy" though, as i felt it also offered a fascinating look at the cyclical nature of human civilization, and perhaps more so, the ultimate hopelessness of it. It is a terrifyingly bleak film.

if you can track down a copy of it, and feel as though you can handle the often tedious viewing experience, its definitely worth it. There's nothing else out there quite like it.

It's difficult to describe the film The Silver Globe to the average person. Many people describe it as being similar to Jodorowsky's unfinished Dune project. The version I found had no subtitles, so I had to guess what was happening, but that didn't bother me since it was unlike any film I had seen. The movie takes place in a post apocalyptic future that has almost been destroyed by man. People decide to start over, and they build a village on the moon and choose a leader. They're are many disturbing and unforgettable images of people shouting at the brink of their sanity, bizarre bird creatures and a brutal crucifixion scene on a cross that's almost 100 ft high. There is one scene where people are in the air with poles stuck up them, the poles are almost a couple stories high. (Hard to describe but think of the impalement scene in Cannibal Holocaust 100 ft. in the air) The movie has some of the most amazing cinematography and insane camera angles. Fan's of directors like Jodorowsky, Tarkovsky and David Lynch won't be disappointed.