On the Silver Globe (Na Srebrnym Globie)

ON THE SILVER GLOBE

This film is based on "THE LUNAR TRILOGY" by Jerzy Żuławski

You are about to see a film made ten years ago.

A two-and-a-half-hour story, one-fifth of which is missing.

That one-fifth, dating back to 1977, when the film was annihilated, will never be recreated.

In place of missing scenes, a voice will explain what was meant to be.

We brought ON THE SILVER GLOBE to an end in 1987.

It fell from the clouds at night.

From up high.

They were close.

Hunting.

They found it in the morning, in the branches.

It fluttered. Beautiful.

He travelled for two days across the snow. Tired.

He thought, "it must be for them, for sure."

What is it?

He says they saw it fall. They could not have seen.

Maybe they saw a star.

It's an ancient relic. It could not have fallen just now.

It could be from the past--

Everybody saw it. Two days ago, at night.

They found it in the morning. It can only be for us.

It's fifty, sixty years old.

It's a Small Transmission Module STM.

The way that it's burnt, indicates Titanium Beta or the like.

It used to take off from a pad on six propulsion nozzles.

I guess they didn't teach you about that.

Why did it fall?

It could've honed in on a target station fifty years ago.

Unless...

If what they're saying is true...

They usually do not lie.

One of the older rigs should crack it.

If the chip's not fried, it should tell us where it came from and why.

Tell her again that I demand she not intrude.

This place is packed with delicate gear. It'll all go haywire.

Unless she would come to see you.

She's not coming to see you. She's coming to take you.

You don't understand. She's mine.

No, you belong to them.

Put your mask on. It's freezing outside.

Later.

What happens if you run out of those chemicals?

Freedom, maybe?

They can kill us at any time and take the chemicals, or steal them while we sleep.

But they will not.

We're the givers, not the takers.

Aliens like trees.

They want to tame us. To poison, to engulf...

Are we the last of those who have the power, or the first of those to be defenceless?

Under the hatchway into which two astronauts enter, there's a lab.

A huge room filled with machines that listened to sounds from outer space.

Only one of the oldest machines, which has remained idle for decades...

...can read out what's inside the container, which the astronauts received from the rider.

It's a diary, or rather, a series of semi-transparent plates featuring scenes as if shot with a camera.

The opening shows the flight of a spacecraft, and the pilots losing control, crashing into the mountains.

Only a fragment of this recording survives.

I can see.

The astronauts struggle out of the battered cockpit.

Around them are mountains. The air is unbreathable.

They leave behind the dead body of their commander.

They wheel out buggies from their rocket and ride downhill.

One of the astronauts, Tomasz, is injured.

Another rocket crashes into the mountains and explodes.

Were those who died inside it, with them or after them?

This planet resembles Earth perfectly.

This is why it was chosen to start a new life.

Heading to the sea, the buggies come across a large mound of stones...

...piled together like an architectural form, as if a civilisation once existed here in the past.

While near the ruins, Tomasz's fever turns to delirium.

He sees ghosts. The dead astronauts are coming to capture him.

One tries to defend him.

The others want to chain him up.

The commander was right. They allow us to breathe.

We shall live...

Wait...

Do you remember when a man is to be born...

...the father endows him with the seeds of every possibility?

What every man nurtures in him will witness it grow inside and bring fruits.

If it's vegetal, he'll be a plant.

If it's sensual, he'll be an animal.

If it's rational, his being will become divine.

Finally, if it's intellectual, he'll be an angel, or the son of Man!

Maybe it's time to say that the Republic is in real danger.

That we're cowards who've got to defend courage, sex, carnal beauty, the quest of love...

...the conquest of which may become a heroic destiny after all.

To utter these words is to show how sad we are, because the strongest believers among us...

...spent their years talking about fear, impotence, stupidity, ugliness, self-love and apathy...

...although we've thus attempted to take a severe view of this reality...

...which may depend on our decent life, our work...

...our own honour which permits us to say no more than what we ourselves have seen.

It is over.

I didn't hear your answers.

I believe no signal can pierce this world's radiation belt.

While falling, they were above this plain.

- Stop pulling! - The wave bounced, so we got it.

It was them standing over me...

The commander was walking dead... To take me away...

Maybe what bounced back

was not just an electromagnetic wave,

but bions making up the image of the dead...

- Stop pulling! - You're delirious!

Surely you know that whatever you say

must carry at least a grain of truth

just because you are capable of saying it.

Put him down!

Do not forget what we escaped from,

Just to repeat with impunity what we believe in.

Do not forget!

Whatever you say is the truth,

unless you say it...

to impose your will upon us.

Me, I do not believe in anything.

If you say it, you look into yourself.

You are not blind.

That is why you are a fugitive like us.

Yes, you are dying, brother.

After all, there is truth in everything I say

if I am able to say it.

Freedom exists and is lying in darkness...

It turns away from the lust of darkness

to lean towards the lust of light.

It embraces light with its everlasting will.

And darkness strives to capture the light of freedom

but it cannot do that,

because it wraps itself around its own lust...

and turns to darkness again.

The wind rises. The night is falling.

The drizzle turns into a downpour, and the downpour into a hurricane.

Tomasz dies.

Before he dies, Marta begs to be left alone with him.

She loves him, clings to him, and she protects him with her body.

The river rumbles, swells and overflows. It's a flood.

Marta!

We have to get moving. We will not survive here.

No chance, until we reach the seashore where we were supposed to land.

Come on.

No! No!

You are sick. You will have to be carried.

Turn it off, I am telling you, turn it off, you fool.

The sea!

I see the sea!

Jerzy.

Tomasz is growing faster than he would on Earth.

At the age of six months, he is as tall as a one-year-old.

Jerzy, could it be that we will all die and he will be left alone?

Marta. It is the rainy season. It will keep raining.

Six months of waiting is a long time.

You may perish, we may perish, and then...

and then...

Marta, am I right?

Yes.

I took cameras off Marta and Piotr. They no longer bother to record.

I have transferred their memories onto mine.

I have erased the irrelevant passages. I have kept the gist.

Only by recording do I make sense out of myself.

I must be careful.

It costs them so much.

It costs me so little. Why?

Almost nothing.

I do not demand anything. I do not believe in anything.

I believe only in perfect freedom, ours, mine.

Piotr says that long, long ago,

I could have become a monk,

because I am not yet a man, but I am already old.

For if one is to forget why we came here,

I did.

It is not us that are lost in contemplation of the world.

It is the world that is lost in contemplation of us.

Oh, Earth!

You do not wish to learn from me, Tomasz?

I can breathe without this.

What is Earth really like?

What is it, Old Man?

Earth is what I feel for you.

You are alive. My father died.

Marta, talk to me.

Marta, say something!

Yes.

Marta, keep silent.

Marta, laugh.

Marta, cry.

Marta, dance!

Dance!

One can think only if one believes.

There is no thought without faith.

Only one who has faith has thoughts.

Thus... one must want to know faith.

One can only believe if one has grown roots.

Only one that believes that they have grown roots.

Thus one must want to know one's rootedness.

One can have roots only if one acts.

One who acts has roots.

Thus one must want to know action.

Here, everything is as on Earth.

The same chaos, the same absence of truth.

- The same lie. - You love her.

To love is to want to be absorbed entirely by somebody.

To love is to feel entirely responsible for somebody.

You can also take without love. In that case, this word is meaningless.