Escape to the Sil­ver Globe – first-look review

Andrzej Żuławs­ki​’s lit­tle-seen 1977 film On the Sil­ver Globe is fre­quent­ly cit­ed as one of the great­est sci­ence fic­tion films that could (or rather, should) have been. Oscil­lat­ing some­where between Andrei Tarkovsky​’s cere­bral sci-fi and Ale­jan­dro Jodor­owsky​’s intri­cate sur­re­al­ist iconog­ra­phy, On the Sil­ver Globe was all set to mark a crit­i­cal turn­ing point – not just for Żuławs­ki and Pol­ish film­mak­ing, but for inter­na­tion­al cin­e­ma at large.

This was a pro­duc­tion of unprece­dent­ed pro­por­tions for Pol­ish cin­e­ma, shot in var­i­ous loca­tions – a cast mem­ber remem­bers shoot­ing 3km under­ground in the Wielicz­ka salt mine for over 12 hours – and includ­ing intri­cate, heavy cos­tumes that were extreme­ly labo­ri­ous to get into. Two weeks before the shoot­ing was sched­uled to end, pro­duc­tion was halt­ed, and the film would remain incom­plete for an entire decade, not because of Żuławs­ki, but thanks to the new­ly appoint­ed Deputy Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Janusz Wil­hel­mi. The pre­text – that the film was an eco­nom­i­cal­ly over­am­bi­tious crit­i­cism of the com­mu­nist régime – led the film to be shelved.

Kuba Mikurda’s doc­u­men­tary encap­su­lates the his­to­ry sur­round­ing this unful­filled cin­e­mat­ic dream, giv­ing us insight into how the late Pol­ish auteur’s fil­mog­ra­phy added an inno­v­a­tive tex­ture to the already dynam­ic scene of Pol­ish cin­e­ma in the ​’70s. At first, Escape to the Sil­ver Globe seems like it is roman­ti­cis­ing Żuławski’s auteurism, using it as a met­ric for prais­ing his work. Likened to a ​“guru” with unmatched vision and com­mit­ment, cast and crew mem­bers were enveloped in waves of cre­ative eupho­ria, refer­ring to their expe­ri­ences work­ing in his films as ​“rev­e­la­tions”.

These qualms about the doc­u­men­tary veer­ing into hagiog­ra­phy are quick­ly sti­fled, as lay­ers of com­plex­i­ty began to unfold. The edi­tors – Iza Pająk and Lau­ra Pawela – deserve bulk of the cred­it, as they mas­ter­ful­ly blend film shots and split-screen jux­ta­po­si­tions with archival mate­r­i­al and inter­views of cast and crew mem­bers, jour­nal­ists, crit­ics, fes­ti­val direc­tors, as well as the director’s son Xaw­ery. These accounts thor­ough­ly address his short­com­ings as a hus­band, father, and a direc­tor, under­min­ing the myth of the male genius whilst del­i­cate­ly incor­po­rat­ing threads about flawed father­hood into the narrative.

Even when the nar­ra­tive of his films would appear to be far removed from his per­son­al life, Żuławs­ki was adamant: his life and work were inex­tri­ca­bly inter­twined. After years of forced migra­tion, he was invit­ed to return to Poland and com­plete his vision, piec­ing togeth­er the nar­ra­tive by fill­ing the gaps with his own voiceover. This was lay­ered over urban and nat­ur­al shots of mod­ern Poland – which evoke some­thing styl­is­ti­cal­ly akin to Tarkovsky’s Solaris – lend­ing the ​“fin­ished” prod­uct a strange ambi­ence. The result, pre­sent­ed in Cannes’ Un Cer­tain Regard sec­tion in 1988, was imbued with a phan­tas­mago­ria that per­haps wouldn’t be so present through nar­ra­tive coherence.

It’s fair for a doc­u­men­tary on such a dar­ing, inno­v­a­tive fig­ure to play it safe in terms of form and stick to the con­ven­tions of such pro­file film­mak­ing, and shy away from tak­ing risks or attempt­ing styl­is­tic diver­gence. Of course, this doesn’t excuse some clichéd music cues, nor a slight­ly stan­dard, info-dump approach. Yet by treat­ing On the Sil­ver Globe as a case study, it strives to appear as objec­tive as pos­si­ble, thought­ful­ly weav­ing the prisms of his­tor­i­cal con­text, per­son­al his­to­ry, genre and the land­scape of Pol­ish – as well as inter­na­tion­al – cin­e­ma, to pro­vide a sol­id, mul­ti­lay­ered doc­u­ment. It nev­er falls into the trap of bore­dom, sim­u­lat­ing the con­ta­gious ener­gy of a Żuławs­ki pic­ture, and the love and fas­ci­na­tion at the heart of this project are tru­ly palpable.