Zulawski’s On the Silver Globe

It is like the trippy, absurdist science fiction epic Jerzy Grotowski never made. Andrzej Zuławski also considered it the film he never made, or rather the film that was “murdered,” despite stitching together his surviving scraps into over two and a half hours of immersive strangeness. Thanks to the ham-fisted Polish Communist censors, it is an even more surreal viewing experience. Digitally restored to a clarity probably never really seen before, Zuławski’s mauled and maligned masterwork On the Silver Globe (trailer here) re-releases today at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

In both narrative and aesthetic terms, Globe is closely compatible with Aleksey German’s adaptation of the Strugatsky Brothers novel, Hard to Be a God, which should either thrill or despair viewers, depending on how severe and adventurous their tastes might be. Both films tell the stories of space travelers from Earth who essentially go native on a distant world. In the case of Globe, it is astronauts Marta, Jerzy, and Tomasz who give birth to a new human civilization, like an Adam and Eve threesome, but with all the jealousies implied by the “two’s company, three’s a crowd” cliché.

As the new civilization becomes increasingly tribal, their descendants welcome Marek, a new arrival from Earth as the messiah in the battle against the Sherns, the planet’s sinister bird-people, who seem to have some sort of extra-sensory powers. Or something like that.

Frankly, Zuławski was never really going for narrative cohesion in the first place. Yet, when the new Communist culture commissar Janusz Wilhelmi shut down his two-years-and-counting shoot and ordered the destruction of all the film and components Zuławski and his crew couldn’t hide away, it literally left gaping holes the auteur eventually filled in the late 1980s with voice-overs. Considering Zuławski always makes it explicitly clear why his narration is necessary, Globe might just be the most savagely passive aggressive film you will ever see.

It is also remarkably heady and bafflingly obscure. While the religious symbolism is tough to miss, the finer points of the alien culture and the characters’ relationships seem to shift and evolve with confounding regularity. Yet, like German’s film, it is loaded with outlandish set pieces and gritty, grimy world-building detail. Cinematographer Andrzej Jaroszewicz’s wide angles and fish-eyes gives it all a truly otherworldly look, while Andrezej Korzynski’s electro-ambient-symphonic-blues-prog-rock score heightens the eclectic, anything-goes vibe.

No matter how you cut it, Globe simply was not a great showcase for its cast, unless there was a state-approved hack director looking for a thesp to run amok like a naked shrieking wild man, smearing mud and blood on his chest. However, it is bold cinematic vision from an aesthetically and ideologically rebellious artist. Arguably, Wilhelmi shot himself in the foot banning and marring a film that so many would have found utterly incomprehensible, but they understood perfectly the oppressiveness of his decree. Even if you have no idea what to make of it (and the cinema gods will readily pardon you for that), it is still nice to have it available in all its raggedy, defiant glory. Recommended for serious film students and patrons of censored works, On the Silver Globe open today (7/29) in New York, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Zulawski’s Possession

East German border guards can see Mark and Anna’s apartment from their posts along the Berlin Wall. It ought to be the perfect setting for the dissolution of their marriage. However, their union will not be merely severed. It will be torn limb from limb in former Andzrej Wajda protégé Andrzej Żuławski’s notorious art-house pseudo-horror film Possession (trailer here), which finally opens theatrically in all its uncut, restored glory at New York’s Film Forum this Friday.

Previously released in a butchered shorter cut, Possession has something of a reputation—and rightly so. Essentially, it is everything Lars von Trier’s The Antichrist was billed as, raised to the power of ten. If that gives you any trepidation whatsoever, than Possession is not for you, but if you are open to it, take a deep breath and let’s get into it.

Mark is some sort of freelance spy returning home after a long assignment. Strangely though, his wife Anna is less than thrilled to see him. In fact, she can hardly stand to be in the same room with him. Indeed, it turns out there is another man she is determined to leave Mark for. This sends her insecure husband into a self-destructive bender, involving violence directed towards her and to a greater extent, himself. Obviously, this is not a great environment for their son Bob, the symbol of innocence throughout the film, whom Mark deliberately uses as a weapon against Anna.

When he finally rouses from his stupor, Mark hires a private detective agency that follows Anna to a creepy unfurnished apartment in a down-market neighborhood. While Anna might want some space from Mark, she seems to be enraptured by a “thing.” Rather intimately, in fact. This is where things start getting weird and even bloodier.

Mark and Anna could probably use a psychiatrist and an exorcist. They certainly should not be around powerized kitchen appliances. What unfolds is absolutely harrowing and completely bizarre. Żuławski’s control of the audience is masterful. He simultaneously cranks the tension up to nosebleed levels, while constantly bombarding viewers with jolt-inducing imagery. You cannot really call it a horror film, but that is probably the closest applicable label.

The combination of Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani is the kind of intriguing pairing that might convince cautious cineastes to take a chance on Possession. Both leads totally go for broke throughout the film, but it would probably be more accurate to say they develop a convincing anti-chemistry together.

Still, Adjani also has some remarkably delicate scenes with Neill as Helen, Anna’s doppelganger (don’t ask, it would take too long to explain). Indeed, her exquisitely sensitive and vulnerable appearance makes her characters’ transgressive behavior all the more jarring, especially her five minute freak-out in the West Berlin metro. Frankly, it feels more like twenty-five minutes. Just when you think it cannot get any more shocking, she reaches a new level. However, the raw, visceral power of her performance is undeniable, justly recognized at the Cannes Film Festival with the best actress honors.

Adjani’s longtime partner cinematographer Bruno Nuytten gives the film a classy polished look that suggests auterist genre classics from the likes of Polanski and Kubrick. Yet, for all its blood and inhumanity, Possession is not a scarring film for anyone with a fair number of cult films under their belt. Though there is violence, it is never committed out of sadism (just why characters do certain things is another matter entirely). Nor is Possession a nihilistic film. Notions of right and wrong, good and evil, have very real meaning in this world. It is just the case that the latter have the overwhelming upper-hand against the former.

Possession is a true experience. It is draining to watch, but when it is over, you know you have seen a film. Big, bold, and intensely personal, it is a genuine masterwork from Żuławski. Highly but judiciously recommended to those who fully understand what they are getting into, Possession begins its special one week run at Film Forum this Friday (12/2).