BAMcinématek: On the Silver Globe (Na srebrnym globie)

Directed by Andrzej Zulawski
With Andrzej Seweryn, Jerzy Trela

(1988) 166min, 35mm

No drugs needed. Zulawski’s epic sci-fi maudit was nearly complete when the Polish government suddenly shut down production. A decade later the director pieced together the surviving footage with narration to complete this must-be-seen-to-be-believed mindfuck that plays like Tarkovsky’s Stalker by way of a Jodorowsky acid-trip spectacle.

The patchwork plot concerns a group of astronauts who colonize and build a primitive society on the dark side of the moon—marked by bizarre rituals, extreme violence, orgies, elaborate crucifixions, and pagan religious mysticism—and charts its development over the course of millennia. Astonishing, even in its compromised state.