On the Silver Globe (film)

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1988 Polish film

On the Silver Globe

Polish poster

Directed by| Andrzej Żuławski
Written by| Andrzej Żuławski
Based on| The Lunar Trilogy
by Jerzy Żuławski
Produced by| Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Starring|

* Andrzej Seweryn
* Jerzy Trela
* Iwona Bielska
* Grażyna Dyląg
* Jan Frycz
* Krystyna Janda

Cinematography| Andrzej Jaroszewicz
Edited by| Krzysztof Osiecki
Music by| Andrzej Korzyński

Production
company

KADR

Release dates

* 12 May 1988 (1988-05-12) (Cannes)
* 10 February 1989 (1989-02-10)

Running time

| 166 minutes
Country| Poland
Language| Polish
Budget| PLN 58 million

On the Silver Globe (Polish: Na srebrnym globie) is a 1988 Polish epic science fiction film[1] directed and written by Andrzej Żuławski, adapted from The Lunar Trilogy by his grand-uncle, Jerzy Żuławski. Starring Andrzej Seweryn, Jerzy Trela, Iwona Bielska, Jan Frycz, Henryk Bista, Grażyna Deląg and Krystyna Janda, the plot follows a team of astronauts who land on an uninhabited planet and form a society. Many years later, a single astronaut is sent to the planet and becomes a messiah.

Production took place from 1976 to 1977, but was interrupted by the Polish authorities. The film's budget is estimated to be at least PLN 58 million.[2] Many years later, Żuławski was able to finish his film, although not in the format originally intended. On the Silver Globe premiered at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, and has received critical acclaim.

## Plot

[edit]

In a prologue: in the far future, two researchers are resting in a derelict palace, which is also occupied by a tribe of indigenous people. A horse rider brings the scientists a technological item which he says has fallen from the sky in flames. The scientists realise it is an old, obsolete, "Small Transmission Module", and in their underground laboratory they find it contains the video diary of an astronaut whose spacecraft crashed at least 50 or 60 years ago.

In a lengthy flashback: a group of dissident astronauts crash land on an unnamed Earth-like planet after escaping from a degraded and vaguely dystopian Earth. One succumbs to his injuries shortly after. As a result of the accident, only three astronauts remain, a woman named Marta and two men, Piotr and Jerzy. Communication with Earth is lost and the survivors decide to settle on the seashore and there they give rise to a new human race.

After the birth of their first son, Marta notices that the child is growing much faster than on Earth. Later, an unseen enemy kills Piotr and Marta dies in childbirth. Decades later, Jerzy is in his old age but has not aged as quickly as the new humans. The new humanity is now a tribe of several dozen people, with whom he can no longer communicate: they are partially feral and view "The Old Man" (Jerzy) as a demigod. Before he dies, he sends a video diary to Earth containing recordings from handheld video cameras.

Many years later, a planetary scientist named Marek travels to the planet. When he arrives, the priests in power believe him to be the returning Old Man and declare Marek to be the messiah who, according to prophecy, must free humans from the power of telepathic bird-like humanoids called "Sherns", the planet's native inhabitants. Marek accepts this role and leads a military campaign against the Sherns. Back on Earth, we learn that the reason Marek was sent to this planet was because his actress girlfriend was sleeping with a fellow officer, Jacek, and they wanted to get rid of him to continue their affair. At first, the humans succeed and capture the Shern leader Avius, but the subsequent landing in the Shern city ends in disaster. Meanwhile, the priests start to believe that Marek was an outcast from the Earth, rather than a messiah who came to fulfill the religious prophecy. Marek is stoned and then crucified.

## Cast

[edit]

* Andrzej Seweryn as Marek[3]
* Jerzy Trela as Jerzy / The Old Man
* Grazyna Dyląg as Ihezal
* Waldemar Kownacki as Jacek
* Iwona Bielska as Marta
* Jerzy Gralek as Piotr
* Elzbieta Karkoszka as Ada, daughter of Marta
* Krystyna Janda as Aza
* Maciej Góraj as Jeret, a warrior
* Henryk Talar as Mark's guide
* Leszek Dlugosz as Tomasz
* Jan Frycz (credited as Andrzej Frycz) as Tomasz II, son of Marta and Tomasz
* Henryk Bista as High Priest Malahuda
* Wiesław Komasa as Actor
* Jerzy Goliński as astronaut
* Andrzej Lubicz-Piotrowski as Awij

## Production

[edit]

The underground temple was filmed in the Wieliczka salt mine.

Jerzy Żuławski wrote the novel on which the film is based, On the Silver Globe, around 1900 as part of The Lunar Trilogy. Żuławski was the grand-uncle of Andrzej Żuławski. Andrzej Żuławski left his native Poland for France in 1972 to avoid Polish government censorship. After Żuławski's critical success with the 1975 film L'important c'est d'aimer, the Polish authorities in charge of cultural affairs reevaluated their assessment of him. They invited him to return to Poland and produce a project of his own choice. Żuławski, who had always wanted to make a film of his grand-uncle's novel, saw the offer as a unique opportunity to achieve this aim.

Principal photography started on 20 June 1976 in Jastrzębia Góra. Until 29 September, scenes for the film were filmed on the Polish Baltic coast and in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.[2]

Subsequently, the work was stopped on charges of "extremely low labor efficiency and overprices". Żuławski undertook to speed up the work. Until May 1977, further filming was carried out in Police, in Lower Silesia, in the Wieliczka salt mine, in the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, Krakow, again on the coast and in the mountains of the Caucasus.[4]

On 1 June 1977, work on the film was stopped by Janusz Wilhelmi, vice-minister of cultural affairs.[2] Wilhelmi shut down the film project, which was eighty percent complete, and ordered all materials destroyed. The reels of the unfinished film were however preserved, along with costumes and props, by the film studio and by members of the cast and crew.[Note 1]

At the end of 1985, Żuławski agreed to complete the film. In 1986, shots were shot from the streets of contemporary Poland, to which the director added voice-over describing the missing scenes. The acting team and cast members abroad were dubbed.[2]

On 10 July 1987, the film passed inspection.[2] In May 1988, a version of the film, consisting of the preserved footage plus a commentary to fill in the narrative gaps, premiered at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.[6]

## Reception

[edit]

### Critical response

[edit]

On the Silver Globe has an approval rating of 100% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on six reviews, and an average rating of 8.2/10.[7] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on four critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".[8]

### Accolades

[edit]

Date  | Award  | Category  | Recipients  | Result  | Ref.

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|
|
|
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1989  | Fantasporto | Best Film  | Andrzej Żuławski  | Nominated  | [9]

## Home media

[edit]

The film was released on Blu-ray on 26 February 2024 in the Eureka Entertainment Masters of Cinema series. Two discs contain the 1988 film plus several extras and documentaries.

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ The Eureka Entertainment Blu-ray release features the documentary Escape to the Silver Globe (2021) by Kuba Mikurda about the production of the film,[1] which includes interviews with several people who worked on it and with Żuławski and his son Xawery. The documentary claims that the Ministry of Culture had been alarmed by Andrzej Wajda's Man of Marble (1977) and decided to clamp down on the Polish film industry, and Janusz Wilhelmi was appointed vice-minister of cultural affairs. Wilhelmi had no interest in cinema and wanted to turn the Polish film industry into a department of Polish Television. He wanted to show he was in charge of the film industry and had the power to humiliate Żuławski, and decided to make a show by ordering all work on On the Silver Globe to cease immediately, and expelling Żuławski from the country. Żuławski says he went to Dakar to visit his father, where he met a man who gave him a shaman's jacket from a remote part of Mali to protect him and his family. Żuławski only put on the jacket once, and the following day Wilhelmi was killed in a plane crash. Also, on the same day, members of the film crew had watched the first screening of a very rough cut of the film.[5]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b Bałaga, Marta (5 September 2021). "Polish Doc 'Escape to the Silver Globe' Explores the Greatest Science Fiction Movie That Never Was". Variety. Archived from the original on 28 February 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
2. ^ a b c d e "Historia Polskiego Filmu - Artykuły - Akademia Polskiego Filmu". akademiapolskiegofilmu.pl (in Polish). Archived from the original on 20 March 2023. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
3. ^ "FilmPolski.pl". FilmPolski (in Polish). Retrieved 28 November 2021.
4. ^ Żuławski, Andrzej. "Na Srebrnym Globie (1987)". Archived from the original on 21 February 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2008.
5. ^ Mikurda, Kuba (2021). "Inside the SIlver Globe". Eureka! Masters of Cinema Series. Retrieved 4 June 2024.
6. ^ "Festival de Cannes: On the Silver Globe". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 18 January 2015. Retrieved 30 July 2009.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
7. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 14 April 2023. Retrieved 6 July 2023.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
8. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 7 July 2023. Retrieved 6 July 2023.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
9. ^ Na srebrnym globie - IMDb, archived from the original on 30 May 2024, retrieved 28 November 2021

## External links

[edit]

* Na srebrnym globie at IMDb
* Na srebrnym globie on the Official Homepage of Andrzej Żuławski
* Comprehensive website on On the Silver Globe (in Polish)

* v
* t
* e

Films directed by Andrzej Żuławski

* The Third Part of the Night (1971)
* The Devil (1972)
* That Most Important Thing: Love (1975)
* Possession (1981)
* The Public Woman (1984)
* L'Amour braque (1985)
* On the Silver Globe (1988)
* My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days (1989)
* Boris Godunov (1989)
* Szamanka (1996)
* Fidelity (2000)
* Cosmos (2015)

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