On the Silver Globe (1989)
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Source: JustWatch
Andrzej Żuławski was two years and eighty percent into an ambitious, delirious science-fiction epic when the government shut his production down.
The Communist authorities in Poland ordered sets and costumes burned, footage seized, and banned him from making films in his own country. He fled to France. The film was gone. So it seemed.
In fact, some reels did survive, and a decade later, Żuławski was finally allowed home to finish ON THE SILVER GLOBE (1988).
Unable to reshoot what had been destroyed, he filmed the streets of modern Warsaw. Ordinary crowds and grey buildings, his own voice calmly describing the scenes the state had burned. The film keeps breaking off from its cosmic vision to show you a living city while a man tells you what should have been.
When the scarred, unfinished thing finally screened at Cannes in 1988, it got a standing ovation.
It is not an easy watch, exhausting and overwhelming and at times impossible to follow. But it's a miracle nonetheless.
Physical Media
4K UHDMondo VisionUnited States2025
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Blu-rayMasters of Cinema (Eureka)United KingdomRegion B2024UPC 5060000705218
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DVD2007
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VHS
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Blu-rayTC EntertainmentJapan
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Blu-rayLe Chat qui fumeFranceRegion free
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About the Film
- Directed By
- Andrzej Żuławski
- Runtime
- 165 minutes
- Released
- February 10, 1989
- Country
- Poland
- Starring
- Andrzej Seweryn, Michał Bajor, Jerzy Trela, Grażyna Dyląg, Maria Pakulnis
More Credits
- Genres
- Science Fiction, Drama
- Language
- Polish
- Origin
- PL
- Studios
- Zespół Filmowy "Pryzmat", Zespół Filmowy Kadr
- Written By
- Andrzej Żuławski, Jerzy Żuławski
- Cinematography
- Andrzej J. Jaroszewicz
- Music
- Andrzej Korzyński
- Also Starring
- Waldemar Kownacki, Iwona Bielska, Jerzy Grałek, Elżbieta Karkoszka, Krystyna Janda
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god I hated this film. such a slog to watch. and fairly nonsensical to me.
Wyn Sheppard Strange that someone with an honest opinion gets laughed at. Silver Globe is not a very good movie. Zulawski made much better movies…
Agree.
I was laughing *because* it was a honest opinion, refreshingly candid. I started watching this the other night and got about twenty minutes. Fascinating backstory though! I’m sure I’ll give the movie another try at some point.
Wyn Sheppard Skill issue.
it’s not entertaining. if a film doesnt entertain, its a failure.
Wyn Sheppard slog indeed. Dramatic for the sake of being dramatic and nothing else
Nice to know I’m not the only one ))))
Agreed it is perplexing and exhausting to watch, but also brilliant in its own way. I have a nice release of this film that came our last year I believe and it was an experience!
Some cool images, terrible film.
Double edged sword for me
It’s funny that the parts the director narrates are the parts you can actually follow the story and understand what’s going on. A respeite from all the madness and weirdness.
I watched it without making the connection that it was the same director as Possession, when I realised it was like “Oh, ok, that makes more sense now.” 😄
And ekhm… yes, today people prefer legends that it was mostly political decision… but even in pre-89 Poland film production was business. And this production was a total mess, it took too much time, money etc. Only difference was that it was decision made by some party official responsible for movies production, not by producer or studio boss 😉
Gabriel Fiałkowski If it was purely a financial decision, why did they order the footage and sets destroyed instead of just cutting off funding?
Gabriel Fiałkowski I have no doubt the truth is more nuanced than the legend. Thanks for your comments!
Anywhere But Hollywood because nobody needed this stuff? Im not telling that it was pure financial. But maybe if he had finished it on time and budget this movie would exist in planned form? Maybe cut by censors, mayby “put on the shelf” as other polish movies but exist. Remember that it was SF. And somebody let Żuławski start it. In Poland in 70s you couldnt just start production. All “production teams” were owned by government and their bosses decided (sometimes under political pressure) who can film and what. I think that Wilhelmi, then deputy minister of arts and culture decided in 1977 that its some strange shit and he had to stop it… and in 1978 he died in plane crash, so maybe all this project was cursed 😉
Gabriel Fiałkowski “Nobody needed this stuff”, really? Jerzy Żuławski was already well regarded at that time and hailed by Stanisław Lem. An adaptation made by a director who made films both in Poland and France while being his great grandson on top of that was enough of a valid reason to greenlight the production.
The decision to stop the production was a display of Wilhelmi’s power first and foremost. The film was behind the schedule because of the lack of materials needed to finish it and many other things. But since Wilhelmi took over the ministry of cinematography in the middle of production, Żuławski was an easy target because nobody in the industry wanted to have his back except for his team. Not to mention Wilhelmi wanting to punish Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski, the director of the studio which produced OTSG, for writing Wajda’s Man of Marble.
Gabriel Fiałkowski bro it was 90% done
Chris DiBella Closer to 75%. There was still a lot of scenes that needed to be shot.
Have something illegal in your system and your good to go.
I loved the look but found it well beyond my ability to follow a story or thread. Alas.
Wow ! Thank you !
Do yourself a favour and turn off the subtitles. Then use socks to narrate what you think is happening. Guaranteed to be a better movie. If you’re Polish, I pity you not (I went to see it in a foreign cinema and was embarrassed about 15 minutes in).
Maciej Fiedor Can we, the Polish people, stop being so whiny about things we genuinely be proud of? Ffs, people want to face the legend, this difficult, sometimes incomprehensible but spectacular monolith that is On the Silver Globe. Let them do it goddamnit but stop with the whining!
Artur Mendera but the movie is shit. It looks spectacular, but as a whole, it is objectively a bad cinematic experience and it floats only on its (overrated perhaps) legend and enormous ego of its director. It is undeniably one of the biggest “what ifs” of 20th century Sci fi cinema, but it is not a monolith of anything. It is a barely warm pile of loose horse crap.
Impressive, beautiful and interesting… Still, not a great film overall and the bizarre use of contemporary street footage behind the narration that fills in the missing sections, simply renders it intermittently annoying. Would it have been such an artistic compromise to use production art or images to fill the gaps, consistent with the rest of the film?
Marek Minecki
I interviewed the director about his films several years ago, if anyone’s interested in listening to this podcast?  https://panelborders.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/electric-sheep-podcast-the-polish-new-wave/
Makes Zardoz look like Love Actually.