Andrzej Żuławski was a man possessed. That's the only way to describe what happened in the Polish dunes and the salt mines of Wieliczka during the mid-1970s. If you’ve ever seen a still from On the Silver Globe—those haunting, cobalt-blue frames of astronauts impaled on spikes or sprinting through desolate, alien landscapes—you know it doesn't look like any other movie. It doesn't even look like a movie. It looks like a transmission from a fever dream that the Polish government tried to bury alive.
It’s probably the most ambitious failure in the history of cinema. Honestly, calling it a "failure" feels like an insult to the sheer scale of what Żuławski was trying to do. He wasn't just making a space movie; he was trying to build a new mythology from scratch. But in 1977, the vice-minister of culture, Janusz Wilhelmi, saw the production as a veiled attack on the Soviet-backed authorities. He shut it down. He ordered the sets destroyed. He told them to burn the costumes.
They didn't burn everything, though. Crew members hid things. They kept rolls of film under beds. Ten years later, after the political winds shifted, Żuławski returned to the footage. He couldn't finish the film—too much was lost—so he did something bizarre and beautiful. He filled the missing gaps with shots of everyday life in 1980s Warsaw while he narrated what should have been in those scenes. The result is a fractured, bleeding masterpiece called On the Silver Globe (Na srebrnym globie), a film that is as much about its own destruction as it is about the moon.
Why the Polish Government Was Terrified of This Film
You have to understand the context of Poland in the 70s. It was a pressure cooker. Żuławski had already been "invited" to leave the country after his film The Devil was banned for its violence and political subtext. When he was allowed back to adapt his grand-uncle Jerzy Żuławski’s The Lunar Trilogy, the authorities thought he was making a harmless sci-fi epic.
They were wrong.
On the Silver Globe tells the story of a group of astronauts who escape a decaying Earth to start a new civilization on a remote planet. It doesn't go well. They grow old, they die, and their children devolve into a primitive, pagan society that treats the last surviving astronaut, Jerzy, as a god. It’s a brutal look at how religions are formed through misunderstanding and how power structures inevitably become corrupt.
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When Wilhelmi saw the rushes, he didn't see aliens. He saw a mirror. The "Sherns"—the bird-like indigenous monsters of the planet—and the way the new humans organized their society felt a little too much like a critique of the socialist state. The production was halted when it was roughly 80% complete. The financial waste was staggering, but for the censors, the ideological risk was worse. They didn't just want the movie stopped; they wanted it erased from history.
The Visual Language of Madness
The cinematography here is genuinely unhinged. Andrzej Jaroszewicz, the Director of Photography, used wide-angle lenses that distort the edges of the frame, making everything feel claustrophobic even when they're in the middle of a desert.
The color palette is cold. It's dominated by a specific, sickly blue tint achieved through experimental processing. It makes the skin of the actors look translucent and alien. While George Lucas was making Star Wars look lived-in and "used," Żuławski was making On the Silver Globe look like it was filmed in a different dimension where hope hadn't been invented yet.
Most sci-fi movies of that era relied on steady shots to show off expensive models. Not this one. The camera is constantly moving. It’s frantic. It’s often handheld, "shaky cam" decades before it became a Hollywood cliché. The actors aren't just reciting lines; they are screaming them, spit flying at the lens, their eyes wide with a kind of theatrical mania that is synonymous with Żuławski’s style.
The Story We Almost Lost
The narrative structure is split. The first half is the "found footage" of the original expedition. Jerzy (played by Jerzy Trela) is the last survivor, watching his friends die and their descendants turn into something unrecognizable. He records his observations on a video diary, which is later sent back to Earth.
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The second half follows a second expedition, led by a man named Marek. He arrives on the planet centuries later. To the primitive inhabitants, he is the "Messiah" foretold by Jerzy. They expect him to lead a holy war against the Sherns.
- The Sherns: These aren't your typical "men in suits." They are telepathic, bird-like entities that represent a kind of ancient, inscrutable evil.
- The Religion: The film meticulously shows how Jerzy’s mundane items—his camera, his suit—become holy relics. It’s a cynical, fascinating take on the "Cargo Cult" phenomenon.
- The Ending: Without spoiling the specifics, let's just say it involves a massive, excruciating crucifixion scene that rivals anything in The Passion of the Christ for sheer visceral discomfort.
The missing scenes are the most haunting part of the 1988 "reconstructed" version. You’ll be watching a scene of intense ritualistic sacrifice, and then suddenly, the screen cuts to a shot of a streetcar in Warsaw or a woman in a 1980s coat walking through a park. Żuławski’s voice comes over the top, calmly explaining that this is where a battle was supposed to happen, but the costumes were destroyed by the state. It breaks the fourth wall in a way that makes the film feel like a ghost.
A Legacy of Influence
You can see the DNA of On the Silver Globe everywhere today, even if the directors don't realize it.
Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and Alien: Covenant share that same grim, philosophical DNA—the idea that our creators might actually hate us. The frenetic energy and "body horror" elements influenced a generation of European filmmakers. Even modern folk-horror like Midsommar owes a debt to the way Żuławski films ritual and collective insanity.
People often compare it to Tarkovsky’s Stalker or Solaris. While Tarkovsky is meditative and quiet, Żuławski is loud and violent. Tarkovsky looks for the soul; Żuławski looks for the nerves. It’s the difference between a prayer and a scream.
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Getting Into the Żuławski Mindset
If you're going to watch this, don't expect a linear, easy-to-follow plot. It’s a sensory assault. You have to let the images wash over you. It's a film about the failure of language and the failure of utopia.
There's a reason film students obsess over this. It represents a "What If?" moment in cinema. What if the most expensive, most creative sci-fi film of the 70s hadn't come from California, but from behind the Iron Curtain? The world of sci-fi would look completely different. We might have had fewer laser guns and more existential dread.
On the Silver Globe remains a testament to artistic resilience. They tried to kill it, but the film survived in a mutated, scarred form that is arguably more powerful than the finished version would have been. It’s a reminder that art can be suppressed, but the impulse to create something massive and terrifying is hard to extinguish.
Actionable Insights for the Cinephile
To truly appreciate this work, you shouldn't just watch it in the background while scrolling on your phone. It demands focus.
- Seek out the restored versions: Look for the 4K restorations released in recent years (often found through Mondo Macabro or specialized European distributors). The original 1988 home video transfers are muddy and don't do the "blue" cinematography justice.
- Read the backstory: Watch the documentary Escape to the Silver Globe (2021). It features interviews with the surviving crew members and shows the actual locations today. It provides the necessary political context that makes the film's "meta" elements hit harder.
- Contextualize with The Lunar Trilogy: Jerzy Żuławski’s original books are foundational Polish sci-fi. Understanding that the director was adapting his own family’s legacy adds a layer of personal obsession to the madness on screen.
- Listen to the score: Andrzej Korzyński’s soundtrack is a pioneer in electronic and avant-garde composition. It’s worth a standalone listen to understand how sound design can create a sense of "otherness."
The film is currently available on various boutique streaming platforms like MUBI or through physical media collectors. Watching it is an exhausting experience, but it’s one that will stick with you long after the screen goes black. It's a journey to a moon that never existed, filmed by a man who refused to let his vision stay buried.