On the Silver Globe (film)

On the Silver Globe (Na srebrnym globie) is a 1988 Polish epic science fiction film 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. 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
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 "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

 * Andrzej Seweryn as Marek
 * 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
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.

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.

On 1 June 1977, work on the film was stopped by Janusz Wilhelmi, vice-minister of cultural affairs. 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.

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.

On 10 July 1987, the film passed inspection. 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.

Critical response
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. Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on four critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".

Home media
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.