On The Silver Globe

Continuing on the thread of my recent Communist era film discoveries like Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker", I can recommend another iron curtain curiosity called "On The Silver Globe" directed by Andrzej Zulawski. This tale of stranded Astronauts and their generations of wicked tribal offspring on some far away planet is excellent, even if it's slightly tedious towards the third act. Some chunks of the movie are missing thanks to the Polish Ministry of Culture being overtly against it and the hours upon hours of psychological screen chewing dialog is stressful on subtitle readers. Yet, "On The Silver Globe" is a treasure trove of brilliant design choices including clever locations (beaches, deserts, a cavernous salt mine cathedral) combined with great photography. The costume design specifically is some of the best I've ever seen. Something akin to a cross between Siouxsie Sioux, Julie Taymor and the brilliant work in Frank Herbert's original Dune. Anyways, you can read more about it at IFC, Stylus & Slant and it's well worth your time if you can handle obscure art films.