82. On the Silver Globe (1988)

by Anuk Bavkist

The very first words heard in On the Silver Globe come from none other than the film’s director, narrating over his own opening footage to help guild his viewers through the ruins of a film that was never meant to see light of day:

“You will see a film made ten years ago; a shred of a film; a two-and-a-half-hour story, one-fifth of which is missing. That one-fifth dating back to 1977 when the film was annihilated, will never be recreated. In place of the missing scenes you will hear a voice which will briefly explain what was to be. We are bringing On the Silver Globe to an end in the year 1987.”

Partially adapted from The Lunar Trilogy /Trylogia Księżycowa (1901-11) written by his great uncle Jerzy Żuławski, Andrzej Żuławski’s science fiction epic is a handful. Divided in two acts, the first of which chronicles last surviving astronauts (2 men and 1 woman) whose spaceship crash on an “Earth-like” planet. Their story, captured by one of the survivors and presented as a video diary and filmed like highly stylized found footage, recalls a kind of perverse retelling of Adam and Eve as two of the astronauts continuously mate and give birth to the planet’s first society. Due to constant inbreeding and the fact that the “Earth-like” planet’s maturation rate is double that of normal human rate, the society grows, evolving into a primitive culture that worship fire and mythologize stories of Earth. Years pass and the last living of the three astronaut sends out his video diary to earth, prompting the arrival of a new astronaut, Marek, to the planet years later. The second act follows that same society, who are now under attack by telekinetic bird-like mutants known as Shern, as they lean on Marek to fulfill a religious prophecy.

Read Full Post »