Sur le globe d'argent

Andrzej Zulawski's On the Silver Globe was a movie I was so excited to see ever since I heard of its existence. Even to track it down to watch was something I struggled with for so long. And eventually, once I did come across a way to watch it, I was more than excited to do so.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't keep up. It was a cram fest of any and every philosophical conversation the film could explore, and done so in the most noisy, nauseating and mind numbing way possible.

It had a great first act... Somewhat slow, but consistent and remarkable. Actual conflicts of body and mind. And then it dissolves into madness... the unwatchable kind. The final two acts are just all over the place; with dialogue which people call explorative and introspective, but I feel was vapid, inconsistent and meaningless, with characters that have no individuality, appearing out of thin air at will, all echoing one sentimental philosophy depriving the film of any need to keep its consistency, and with a plot that twists and complicates itself for no apparent reason than to provoke conversation that ends up going nowhere.

Although, one thing that will never cease to amaze me are the visuals; the set designs, costumes, makeup and its unconventional cinematography providing what can only be described as truly otherworldly in its presentation, setting the tone for the movie as accurately and descriptively as possible.

At the end of the day, I'm not hating on it, but simply find it shallow as opposed to what most people say about it in artistic circles. But I'm at least glad that I got to finally watch it, and will forever be content with the knowledge of this movie's existence.

The film looks really intriguing so I was excited to watch it. It definitely wasn't the experience I was hoping for.

I have to admit I basically understood nothing of what was going on. The plot is already complex, and when you add in the attempt to reconstruct the missing scenes using voiceover, it becomes pretty much impossible to follow the story.

As it stands this seems to be more of a curiosity than an actual film.

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.

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.

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.