ShoeBuckle I have seen many bad films but it is hard to remember any which equaled this one. The film has very little if anything going for it. Like other parts of the film the beginning of the film wasn't needed. There is little continuity to the scenes. It will be a real struggle for even the most die-hard film lover to get through this monstrosity. It lasts two and a half hours long and is horribly written. The film tries to be poetic but the script is stilted and the story line becomes constantly disjointed. (The fact there is one-fourth of the film which was never shot doesn't help matters.) In place of lost scenes viewers will see modern shots of life on Earth as the director narrates what the missing scenes would have looked like. The acting is overdone and is laughable if it weren't for the fact they are trying to be serious. I get the idea that the actors were allowed to ad-lib their lines which go on for an inordinate amount of time. I'll do my own ad-libbing right now which will give you an idea of what is in store:A rainbow is like a light never reaching its essence. It is the light of life that glows that way. Life is that way everyday in the morning. I like the morning it gives me a feeling of freshness. Feeling fresh I can see the light.Yes it is that bad. As previously stated the film has several scenes which should have been cut or not used as they add nothing to the storyline. The lighting is very dark and shot with a blue filter to the point that fire looks green. The soundtrack (or lack thereof) will also make you question the director's ability to bring a coherent story to the screen. The only joy I experienced while watching came after the two hour mark when I knew it was almost over.

Joseph Sylvers It's difficult to judge this film accurately because it is a fragmented damaged piece of an artifact, but like Micheloangelos armless David or the defaced Sphinx, the crack in the Liberty Bell, etc, broken things can still hold a remarkable power, perhaps more so than if they had remained intact. Polish authorities halted production of this film, confiscated and burned props, setts, costumes, and footage, leaving about 25 percent of the remaining film, instead of making a documentary about the horrors that befell him ala Lost In La Mancha(though Zulawski did have significantly more footage Gilliam), he includes the destruction of the film as part of the narrative. Those scenes which aren't intact are summarized through voice over from the director himself as hand-held cam(still dizzying Zulawski) tours an unmanned Polish city. The story of On The Silver Globe is an adaptation of "The Lunar Trilogy" written by the directors Uncle Jerry Żuławski between 1901 and 1911(never published in English but popular in Europe), about a Space Crew landed on a distant moon inhabited by primitive humanoid creatures, who find a device which shows them the voyage of an earlier space flight to the planet made by pilgrims who crash or are seeking a new life(it's never clear at least in the film)where after the struggle to survive, begin the process of procreation, accept the children born on the planet grow at an extremely accelerated rate generations passing in less than decades. The first hour or so of the film is all p.o.v. handicam shots ala "Cloverfield", "The Blair Witch Project", "Diary Of The Dead", etc, we see only what the astronaut's see as they begin rebuilding civilization in their own fashion. We observe the culture, customs, architecture, and yes even fashion of the newly developing humans over generations which seem to pass in the time it takes the astronauts to grow facial hair. Because the astronauts age at a much slower rate, they become Godlike elders of the newly emerging(from incest) humans. The anthropological goings on in the background, are more interesting by far than the dialog which I can understand why other's might say sound like the ramblings of mental patients obsessed with meaning, feeling, and Godliness.At first I thought the dialog was the result of hallucination and the stress of surviving in a new completely isolated environment, then as the astronauts die off, I thought again, this is is the result of this last mans increasing isolation(unable to communicate with his offspring who are in fear/awe of his existence, "Why don't you die?", as he wanders the village despondent). Then later I considered it was an affect of the planet, maybe even the Shern projecting some kind of madness(will address get to this later), and inevitably considered there was no reason for the obtuse dialog which does sound more often then not dubiously sane, as well as the possibility that their madness is somehow supposed to be a reflection of our own, as Native and Earth-born alike all seem equally psychotic, exploring the extremities of their environments, the former in collective ways war, torture, orgies, the latter in personal ways drugs, dementia, delusions of grandeur, but I digress. The second half of the film shows us one of the astronauts who discovered the origins of the planet, being selected as the messiah( think of Earth as Heaven and you get the Biblical allusion to The Resurrection), by the natives who we come to realize are the descendants of the first mission. The new Messiah indulges in his Godking status, and deals with the threat posed by winged telepathic creatures called Sherns who kidnap and mate with native women to produce...lizard men? What follows is espionage, decadence, war, and delirious parade of fantastic and occasionally grotesque images(p.o.v. shots of men impaled rectally on 100ft stakes with their intestines hanging out, crucifictions, etc.) All and all On The Silver Globe is a messy movie, brilliant visual poetry and an interesting anthropological concept somewhere between Ursula K Lu Guine and Alejandro Jodorowsky but predating them both by almost fifty years(date of the original story), coupled with an at times incoherent plot and obtuse dialog. Factor in that this film wasn't completed for political reasons, which Zulawaski does, each time he shows us real people walking around as he describes what the astronaut's did next, and you've got an interesting if imperfect jewel of a film. If completed in full it probably would not have been a masterpiece, though the first hour are some of the most naturalistic and oddly surreal images of coming to a new planet that I have ever seen in any SF film, however it would definitely have a loyal place as a cult classic snugly on DVD shelves somewhere between "The Holy Mountain", and "Dune". For adventurous literate film seekers a fragmented modern story of the cyclical nature of time, the destructive nature of hero worship and deification, and human cultural anthropology. Like the film found by the astronauts "On The Silver Globe" is a damaged and incomplete artifact, sacrificed and crucified before it's time like it's protagonist, while warning of the abuses of power and ideologies we accept and propagate which allow them to flourish, and which inevitably lead to this films own cancellation.

mike_wreck 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.

NateManD It's difficult to describe the film The Silver Globe to the average person. Many people describe it as being similar to Jodorowsky's unfinished Dune project. The version I found had no subtitles, so I had to guess what was happening, but that didn't bother me since it was unlike any film I had seen. The movie takes place in a post apocalyptic future that has almost been destroyed by man. People decide to start over, and they build a village on the moon and choose a leader. They're are many disturbing and unforgettable images of people shouting at the brink of their sanity, bizarre bird creatures and a brutal crucifixion scene on a cross that's almost 100 ft high. There is one scene where people are in the air with poles stuck up them, the poles are almost a couple stories high. (Hard to describe but think of the impalement scene in Cannibal Holocaust 100 ft. in the air) The movie has some of the most amazing cinematography and insane camera angles. Fan's of directors like Jodorowsky, Tarkovsky and David Lynch won't be disappointed.