Na srebrnym globie

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.

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.

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.

This is a very nihilistic saga that mocks spiritual misconceptions by means of anthropology, myth, religion put under a microscope. It's amazing how Zulawski managed to engage me in this three hour gibberish monologue. The whole thing is very reminiscent of performance art and butoh dancing. That's not to say that the cinematography was uninspired, it was gorgeous.

only a truly gifted artist could make something this uncompromisingly weird-it makes lost highway look like an episode of meet the press.okay,let's take a story about a few astronauts leaving earth and landing on a distant planet.the astronauts die off relatively quickly and their children grow up at an accelerated rate-the children spring into being btw,no copulation is ever hinted at much less shown-so quickly as to reach their tenth (or so) birthdays in a matter of days.the children welcome the next visitor,presumably from the planet poland,as a god...and i'm not sure what happened after that...that last sentence which probably took you about ten seconds to read is the only synopsis for this 2hr30min minute film i can muster.and i have no idea if what i wrote is even remotely accurate.to say i didn't really follow this movie is besides the point,its greatness lies not in its storytelling abilities so much but in the tough to discern netherworlds of aura and atmosphere.whatever the holy mountain,electra,my love,mulholland drive,blood of a poet or the other 2 giants of polish sur-reality,the saragossa manuscript and the hourglass sanatorium have-this movie has too.i lack the ability to describe sufficiently all the films i've just mentioned so all i can really tell you is that after i watched on the silver globe i knew that i had liked what i had seen.yes,it's totally insane but it's not bad...just don't ask me why....