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Here's
something interesting: an unfinished Polish science fiction film from the
seventies that seems to have become a horror movie by default.
It was apparently intended as an otherworldly epic a la DUNE, but many
pivotal scenes were never shot. What
remains definitely does't work as sci fi, but excels as a dark,
hallucinatory depiction of violence and madness, proving that a failed project
can sometimes be more interesting than a successful one.
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The
director of this 160-minute oddity was Poland's Andrzej Zulawski, whose
earlier DIABEL was banned by Polish authorities for over 15 years. THE SILVER GLOBE (NA SREBRNYM GLOBIE), based upon a three
volume early 20th Century tome written by the filmmaker's
great-uncle Jerzy Zulawski (and which has, incidentally, been translated into
every language but English), had an even more torturous history.
In 1978 Polish authorities halted its production before filming was
completed, ostensibly due to budget overruns.
It wasn't until eight years later that Zulawski, encouraged by
crewmembers, finally pieced together the footage, with hasty voice-over
narration to fill in the missing scenes.
Critics
weren't kind to THE SILVER GLOBE upon its eventual 1987 release, while
Zulawski dubbed it a "broken thing" and subsequently distanced himself from
it. It's an unsatisfying film,
certainly, but also a fascinating and utterly unique experience.
There's no question that Zulawski and his collaborators have created
some extraordinary imagery-we can only wonder what might have resulted if
they'd been allowed to finish shooting!
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Much
of the narrative was flattened by the truncated production, as were many of the
philosophical issues Zulawski intended to explore, but I was able to appreciate
what he was after: a thoughtful, complex spectacle with a scope and ambition
that remain unrivaled, or would have,
at least, had the film been fully realized.
Three
astronauts, two men and one woman, decide to leave the Earth and start a new
civilization. Landing their
spaceship on a desolate planet not unlike ours, they set to work reproducing
and end up with a bevy of offspring who grow into a band of fire-worshipping
pagans. These folks, who look like extras from THE ROAD WARRIOR, take
to worshipping the single surviving astronaut, whom they dub The Old Man, as a
God. He in turn gives them a
number of rules to live by and then promptly disappears.
Back
on Earth, Marek, a lovesick scientist who's just been dumped by his GF, is
looking to find out what happened to the original three space-nuts and travels
to the planet himself--a sequence, BTW, that is related entirely via voice-over
narration over a lengthy shot of folks ascending an escalator(?).
Upon arriving, he finds that its nomadic inhabitants have grown into
divergent bands enslaved by mutant birdmen.
The nomads take Marek for the reincarnation of The Old Man, and treat
him as a God. He leads them into
war against the birdmen, but this false messiah's subjects eventually grow
disenchanted and end up crucifying him on a beach.
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As
with other Zulawski opuses like POSSESSION, LA FEMME PUBLIQUE and SZAMANKA, the
filmmaking is frenzied and psychotic, with spastic camerawork, distorted lenses
and hysterical acting combining with bleak, colorless coastal locations to
convey a vivid atmosphere of moral disintegration.
Come to think of it, this film's concerns are similar to those of
DIABEL, Zulawski's previous movie made in his native Poland (in between he
helmed the French drama THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGáLOVE).
That film portrayed a land succumbing to anarchy, while in this one
it's an entire world paralyzed by enroaching madness.
Zulawski
includes plenty of unflinching gore and sex; standard sci fi-movie hardware and
special effects are conspicuously absent (casualties of the aborted shoot) and
the earthbound sequences are severely limited, leaving us with a bloody and
bizarre drama of brute survival in a primitive landscape.
The costumes and production design are impeccable, ensuring that, if
nothing else, THE SILVER GLOBE is a visual stunner.
It also includes some of the most outlandish sights I've seen in any
film, including a tribal ceremony that degenerates into a vast orgy, and an
outrageous scene featuring dozens of people impaled atop incredibly tall
spikes.
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THE
SILVER GLOBE (NA SREBRNYM GLOBIE)
Zespol Filmowy Pryzmat/Studio Filmowe Kadr
Director: Andrzej Zulawski
Producers: Jan Wlodarczyk, Ryszard Barski (1976-78), Tadeusz Lampka (1986-87)
Screenplay: Andrzej Zulawski
(Based on "The Moon Trilogy" by Jerzy Zulawski)
Cinematographer: Andrzej Jaroszewicz
Editor: Krysztof Osiecki
Cast: Andrzej Seweryn, Jerzy Trela, Iwona Bielska, Jerzy Gralek, Elzbieta
Karkoszka, Krystyna Janda, Andrzej Lubicz-Piotrowski, Jan Frycz, Wieslaw Komasa
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