The greatest sci-fi film you've never seen
Andrzej Żuławski's mind-bending masterpiece that was nearly lost forever gets a North American home video release. Plus: A cool article you might have missed.
Andrzej Żuławski’ Possession has experienced a surge of popularity in recent years, due in part to the advent of Letterboxd, which allows more obscure or overlooked films from the past to achieve present-day “it girl” status among extremely online film nerds like myself. You can even feel Possession’s direct influence on more recent films like The First Omen, with Nell Tiger Free’s demonic possession freak-out paying homage to Isabelle Adjani’s iconic subway miscarriage scene.
Well, all of you Żuławski heads are in for a treat, because Mondo Vision — an obscure indie label with a webpage that doesn’t appear to have been updated since the early 90s — is putting out a 4K UHD edition of his visionary sci-fi masterpiece, On the Silver Globe, and the story behind it is almost as interesting as the film itself.
Based on a trilogy of books written by Żuławski’s great uncle, the film is about a group of astronauts who crash-land on the moon1 and attempt to establish a new human colony. Many years later, their descendants form their own religion based on scraps of information left behind by their long-dead astronaut ancestors and which centers around a Christ-like figure who they believe will deliver them back to their home planet (aka Earth). When a lone astronaut named Marek arrives from Earth on a scientific expedition, he is immediately hailed as the messiah and tasked with helping the humans defeat the Szerns, a race of evil half-bird, half-human creatures who are native to the moon. And things only get weirder from there.
Production began in 1976, five years before the release of Possession, but the film was shut down by the Polish government before shooting could be completed. The official reason was that the film had gone too far over-budget. Żuławski had shot for almost two years before the plug was pulled and he had a reputation for achieving levels of “difficult to work with” that would make Stanley Kubrick blush. Yet many believed Janusz Wilhelmi, an ambitious Deputy Minister of Culture, actually cancelled the film for political reasons and was attempting to make a name for himself by attacking filmmakers he viewed as anti-Communist. Exhausted and demoralized, Żuławski fled to France, where he would remain for nearly a decade.
Years later, a still-bitter Żuławski — who claimed his original vision had been “murdered” — was persuaded to finish the film, adding new footage and voiceover that filled in some of the narrative gaps and allowed it to pass inspection by the censors. This version was submitted to the 1988 Cannes Film Festival where it received near-universal acclaim. Even in its compromised form, the film is a visual stunner and unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, as evidenced by this trailer from the Austin Film Society.
Mondo Vision is offering their release in two flavors — a special edition and a limited edition box set. The special edition comes with a 4K UHD Blu-ray of the film and a 24-page booklet featuring an essay by Daniel Bird, who was instrumental in convincing Żuławski to oversee this digital restoration before his death in 2016. The disc also includes a 2021 feature-length documentary, Escape to the Silver Globe, that covers the making of the film and details how close it came to never seeing the light of day.
The limited edition box set includes all of the above, as well as a 68-page commemorative booklet featuring rare archival photos and essays, lobby cards, posters, a postcard, a lunar map, and a digitally remastered soundtrack CD. It also comes with a numbered certificate of authenticity because they’re only making 4000 of these bad boys, so make sure you pre-order your copy while supplies last.
The special edition is available for purchase here and the limited edition here and both are scheduled to ship out on May 31st, 2025. If you’re interested in reading more about the film before you commit, check out this article in FilmComment from 2016 when the digitally restored version played at NYC’s Lincoln Center.
Before we go —
Last week, I stumbled upon this article in Filmmaker Magazine that’s all about the technical process of remastering films for 4K UHD Blu-ray and the economics involved in deciding which films get the full treatment. It’s a fascinating look at how indie labels like Kino Lorber and Fun City Editions operate behind the scenes and the actual human labor that goes into authoring some of your favorite discs. It made me appreciate my physical media collection even more knowing just how much blood, sweat and tears goes into every release.
That’s all for now. See you next time.
- MS
Because the books were written in the early 1900s, before space travel was possible, Earth’s moon is portrayed as a fantastical place filled with green fire, vast oceans, and various living creatures. The film retains many of these details but (as far as I can remember) it never actually reveals what planet they’re on, leaving things more ambiguous.
Never thought we’d see the day! Immediately ordered. Funny footnote: when BAM and the Cinefamily did their Zulawski retrospectives in 2012, the man was all set to come to both coasts for Q&As. Word on the street is that upon learning BAM’s series was titled “Hysterical Excess” (and objecting to his ouevre being described as such) he decided not to leave Europe at all!
I did miss that article!!!