All language subtitles for On The Silver Globe (1988).eng

ON THE SILVER GLOBE

The film is based on
"The lunar trilogy"
by Jerzy Zulawski

You will see a film
made ten years ago;

a shred of a film;

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 the missing scenes

you will hear a voice which will
briefly explain what was to be.

We are bringing
"On the Silver Globe"

to an end in the year 1987.

It fell from the clouds...
At night...

From on high...

They were close...

They hunted...

They found in the morning...
In trees...

It fluttered... Beautiful...

He travelled for two days...

Across the snow... Tired...

He thought: For them...

For sure.

What is it?

He says they saw it fall...

They couldn't have seen...

Maybe they saw a star...

It is an ancient object.
It couldn't have fallen now.

It could in the past...

Everybody saw it...
Two days ago...

At night...

They found it in the morning...
Only for us...

It is fifty, sixty years old.

It's a Small Transmission
Module STM.

The way it burned indicates
Titanium Beta or the like.

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

I guess they did not even
teach you about it.

Why did it fall right now?

It might have roved to lock in on
a target station,

but not for fifty years.
Unless...

If they are telling the truth.

They usually don't lie.

One of the older rigs
should crack it.

If the brain has not burned up,

it should tell us where it
comes from and why.

Tell her not to enter.

This place is packed with
sensitive gear.

It will all run wild.

Unless she is coming
to see you.

She is not coming to see you,
she is coming to take you.

You don't understand.
She is mine.

No, it's you are theirs.

Go, dress up warm.
It's freezing outside.

Later...

What happens if you run out
of all the chemicals?

Freedom perhaps.

They could have killed us
and taken the chemicals,

or could have stolen them
while we were asleep.

But they haven't.
We are the ones who give,

who do not need to take.

Alien like a tree.

We must be explored
and domesticated.

Poisoned, approached, swept.

Are we the last of those
who retain power,

or the first of those
who are defenceless?

Under the hatchway into which
two astronauts enter

there is a laboratory.

A huge room filled
with machines

listening to the sounds
from outer space.

Only one of the oldest
machines,

which has remained idle
for decades,

can read out what is inside
the container

which the astronauts got
from a rider.

It is a diary, or rather a series
of semitransparent plates

featuring scenes as if
taken with a camera.

The opening plates show
the flight of a spacecraft -

the pilots lose control
over the spacecraft

which crashes in the mountains.

Only a small fragment of this
recording remained.

I can see!

The astronauts clamber out
of the battered cockpit.

They are amidst mountains and
the atmosphere is unbreathable.

They leave the dead body

of the flight commander
O'Tamor near the cockpit.

They wheel out land rovers

from their rocket and they
ride downhill.

One of the astronauts, Thomas,
is injured.

The other rocket following
their course

crashes in the mountains
and explodes.

Were those who died in it, the
Remogners, pursuers or friends?

This planet is an ideal
image of Earth.

That is why it has been chosen
for the beginning of new life.

But the land rovers heading
for the sea

run across a huge heap of debris

reminiscent of some
architectural form,

as if a civilization existed
here in the past.

While they are near the ruins,

Thomas's temperature goes up
and he becomes delirious.

He's seeing phantoms:
The dead astronauts,

O'Tamor and the Remogners are
coming close,

coming to capture him.

O'Tamor defends him.
The Remogners want to chain him.

Come on!

O'Tamor was right.
We can breathe.

We shall live...

Wait!

Do you remember a man being born?

The father endows him with
seeds of every possibility.

What every man nurtures in him

will watch it grow in him
and bring him fruits.

If it is vegetal, he will be a plant;

if it is sensual,
he will be an animal;

if it is rational,
his being will become divine;

finally if it is intellectual,

he will be an angel or
the son of man.

Maybe the time is to say that
the Republic is in real danger,

that we are cowards who have
to defend courage,

sex, consciousness,
carnal beauty, quest of love.

Winning that may become a heroic
destiny after all.

But to utter these words is
to demonstrate how sad we are,

because the strongest believers
among us

have spent their years on
talking about fear,

impotence, stupidity, ugliness,
self-Iove and apathy...

although we have thus attempted

to take an austere view
of this reality

may depend on a decent life,

our work,

our honor

which permits us to express
no more

than what we ourselves
have seen.

It was...

I did not hear your answers.

I don't believe that any
signal could penetrate

the radiation belt enveloping
this planet.

While falling,
they flashed across a plain.

- Don't pull!
- The wave returned and we caught it.

They stood over me...

O'Tamor was walking dead...
To take me along...

Maybe what gets reflected
and returns

is not only an
electromagnetic wave,

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

- Don't pull!
- You are delirious!

I know that whatever
you say

must carry at least a grain of truth

just because you are capable
of saying it.

Put him down!

Don't forget what we escaped,

just to repeat with impunity
what we believe in.

Don't forget.

Whatever you say is the truth,

unless you say it...

to impose your will upon us.

I don't believe in anything.

If you say it,
you look into yourself.

You are not blind.

That is why you are
here with us running away.

Yes, you are dying, brother.

After all, there is truth
in everything I say,

if I am capable of expressing 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 is centered on
its own lust...

and turns to darkness again.

The wind rises.
The night is falling.

The drizzle turns
into a downpour

and the downpour escalates
into a hurricane.

Thomas is dying.

Before he dies, Martha implores
to be left alone with him.

She loves him.
She clings to him.

She protects him with her body.

The nearby river is rising
and breaks its banks.

It's a flood.

Martha!

We have to be moving.
We cannot survive here.

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

Come on.

No, no!

You are sick.
You'll have to be carried.

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

The sea!

I see the sea!

George,

Thomas is growing up faster
than he would on Earth.

At the age of six months,
he is of the height
of a one year old baby.

George, can it be that we will die
out and he will be left alone?

Listen, Martha,

it is a rainy season.
It will keep raining.

Six months of waiting
is a long time,

you may perish, we may perish,

and then...

Martha, am I right?

Martha, am I right?

Yes.

I've taken the cameras of
Martha and Peter.

They no longer bother to record
what is happening to us.

I have fused their memories
into one, mine.

I erase irrelevant pieces.
I keep the gist.

Only this recording makes
sense to me.

I must be careful.

It costs them so much.

It costs me so little.
Why?

Nothing at all.

I don't demand anything.
I don't believe in anything.

I believe only in perfect freedom,
ours, mine.

Peter says that long,
long ago,

I could be a monk,

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

If one is to forget why we
are here,

one is like this.
I am.

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

It is the world that is lost
in our contemplation.

Oh, Earth!

You don't wish to learn
with me, Tom?

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.

Martha, talk to me,

Martha, say something!

Yes.

Martha, keep silent.

Martha, laugh.

Martha, cry.

Martha, dance,

dance!

Martha, dance,

dance!

You can think only if
you believe.

There is no thought
without faith.

Only the one who has faith
has thoughts.

Thus one must want to know faith.

You can believe only if you
have roots.

Only the one can believe who
has roots of his own.

Thus one must want to know
the roots.

You can have your roots
only if you act.

The 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 lasciviously,
without love.

In that case,
this word carries no meaning.

It turns into evil and hate.

But we have arrived here
in order not to hate anybody.

How can you be so happy here,

- you who have nothing here.
- I have you.

You have us,
you have what we have,

which means nothing.
Nothing! Nothing!

George,

you don't even defend yourself.

Oh Earth!

Peter!

Peter!

Peter!

I found him here.

One day when the Angel of Death
came to Solomon

he looked at one of his
courtiers.

"Who is that?" the courtier asked.

"The Angel of Death",
replied Solomon.

"It seems he has looked at me.

So tell the wind to take me from
here and carry me to India".

And Solomon did it.

Then the Angel of Death said:

"I was looking at him for such
a long time, because I wondered.

For I ordered him to deliver
his soul from India.

Meanwhile he is here at your side,
in your court.

It is true!"

I will have your baby.
Yours.

It will be my last baby.

Say nothing for a while.

I want to be at peace with
myself this time.

Help me.

So far you haven't let me paint you.
Can I do it now?

You could have killed him.
Peter.

The moment he wanted to be with
me alone for the first time.

A girl...

I see them...

AII...

Yes, like everything...

Not exactly...

I did not understand, either.

But it's dark here.

You are back.

And the Mother?

Mother is dead? Will you die too?

Yes.

- Like Mother?
- Yes,

yes.

Still, I will say it.
Perhaps incoherently.

I, a free man,

an unimpassioned man,

I am wounded,
wounded like an animal.

I suffer like an animal,
like Peter...

What I brought along with
me was chaos.

Any order, any cheerfulness,
clarity, tranquility have gone.

As if with her death a nightmare
has come without dreaming,

a dream without wake,
a wake without sense.

I was taught that the eye
of the world

which is watching me

is the same eye with which
I am watching the world.

This eye is neither cheerful
nor evil...

neither feeling nor expectant.

It is indifferent like water.

I will stay with it for
as long as I can.

I will go to the mountains,

looking for metal ores which
they will use.

I will be thinking.

I'll be thinking.

I will feel melted in you,

oh rock,

oh grass...

I will feel.

I will feel in me your
non-human translucence.

Complete cool.

I am nobody.

I have despised the belligerents.

Now I,
I myself deserve contempt,

because I am fighting
against myself.

There is suffering, but there is no
subject of suffering.

There is action, but there is no
subject of action.

There is solace, but there is no
man to reach it.

There is a road, but there is no
one to follow it.

You are back again, Old Man.

Please,

- go on dancing.
- You are back again!

I am Ada, Martha's last daughter.

Why would you never die?

Why would you not die?

Why would you not understand what
you yourself have given to us?

Why are you not in what exists?

Why are you elsewhere,
where nothing exists?

Nothing!

And then fertile mother
Martha

begot a thunder with the Moon
in heaven.

And she indulged in pleasure to
have him stronger than Thomas.

And so she returned swept by
the flood and begot fishes,

and animals in forests...

And Peter gave us places to settle
and reason and the bow...

Being here you told us always
to remember.

Why don't you ever say anything?

Oh Earth!

Earth!

The Old Man said:

Oh! Earth!

I want to record myself
more often.

No, no!

Come you,
who are poised motionless,

but who are getting closer
to me every hour.

She feels the fire.

She serves the fire.

She gives herself to me,

because I control the fire...

I am consecrated to you,
who have arrived.

I could marry him.
They are afraid of me and him,

because I play Martha,
and you and the rain.

Love me.

I love everything.

Say something!

Say something!

Say something!

I curse you

in the name of the Old Man.

Say something!

- Say something!
- Kill. Kill him.

The Old Man is praying
for you.

Something he wanted to draw,
for he has forgotten writing.

Maybe evil?

Evil.

Forgive me.

Don't look at me in this picture,

in this garb,
in this degradation.

You would not look for me,

had you not found me!

Record it carefully,

for you are recording
a half-God-animal.

Did you feel the same fear
on Earth, George?

- That's the source of the advent?
- Yes.

- Will you go back there?
- Nobody returns nowhere,

I told you many times.

You do not have to say the
truth to the end.

You are the Old Man.
But tell me how you know all that?

Because eternity

is the state of simultaneous
possession of everything, Ada.

I am Thomas II,
the son of Old Thomas.

Thomas the third.

I don't understand when you
speak like this.

Nobody understands you,
not even Ada.

We are afraid to see your
face for too long.

I cannot oppose you,
Thomas the third.

This place is ever more stuffy,
impatient and wistful.

Because you are the Old Man.

Bless me, Old Man.

How?

Old Thomas was sluggish.

He did not try to enlarge
the country where we live.

He did not want to know
what is beyond and beyond,

as if he was afraid...

Tomorrow the sea will be quiet

and we are crossing to the
other side.

There, on the other side,
something is looming on bright days.

What if there is no other side?

There must be.

You are right.

It is I who always forget
that I know everything,

but I don't understand anything.

- Do you want to see Martha?
- I don't need to.

I believe

that mother Martha
had created all parts of the world,

and we must explore them,
because they are for us.

What are you doing here, Ada?

Be angry with me, Old Man.

Child, child,
you are not listening to me.

I know, I know.
You cannot say everything.

You will go back there.

Stop raving.

- You are my daughter.
- We all are your children

and you showed us what is good
and what is bad.

Tell me why we were expelled
from Earth?

I,

I am beautiful.

I, I am young.

I can do what nobody can do.

May the blessing of the humans
be with you.

Give it.

Enough.

Only the shreds of memory
remained.

On the other side,

we found it.

There are huge settlements,

a city like a beehive...

Everybody perished.
There... there...

Monsters...

They have wings...
Black...

One central eye...

They are flying, flying after me...

To destroy,

destroy the humans...

They are carrying death...

Master, Master!

Master.

It's the wind?

Master... Master...
Don't go...

I am better than you

and that is why I will be
able to play you.

Earth,

Earth,

Earth, Earth.

Oh Earth! Oh Earth!

People, rejoice!

The Old Man is leaving.

People!

Is it allowed to take one's
own daughter to bed?

If a brother takes the property
of his brother,

should his hand be cut off?

Should the dead be given food
every day, or only on holiday?

Is the birth of a baby a holiday,
even if the baby is blind?

I don't know,

I don't know.

- Don't I know anything!
- No, she is not ill.

She is the victory of desire
over truth.

And the sick one, the sick one
is the one who is playing.

The actor is sick, because he is
looking for you in himself.

And he is ugly,
although he can see and feel.

So he will not be loved.
So he wrings his face

and he is like a bad mirror
for beauty.

The actor is the victory
of ugliness

over the beauty of the world.

Do you hear?

Do you hear? Do you hear?

They are flying,

flying, flying,

coming!

Come,

you bloodthirsty God!

Alone, in his bizarre suit of
half-astronaut, half-god,

George has reached the rocket
which crashed in the mountains
years ago.

O'Tamor's body is still lying there,
as if nothing has happened.

With his last effort,
George finds the container

in which he will put the report
that he has recorded

on what happened to him,
to them, to the people here.

He will aim the mini-rocket
across space.

Before he blasts it off,

before he deposits in it the
last memory plate,

he is recording his face on it.
And tears.

In the tunnel where the two
astronauts have watched
George's diary,

the screens flicker out,
and silence sets in.

"It must be dispatched to
the Old Earth"

the senior astronaut says.

He glances at the junior one
who is sitting tense,
self-absorbed.

"Let's go back to them, home,"
says the junior one,

"let us rejoice with them, dance,
celebrate that we are alive".

"Why are you crying?",
asks senior

"Because I don't know who I am".

He silently opens the hatchway
above their heads.

Wind sneaks into
the tunnel passage

and a girl sneaks in with
the wind.

She is the same girl
who died with Thomas

the second on the seashore.

So she is not the same, but she
is always resembling herself.

Following her into the
tunnel come warriors,

stringing their bows.

Many years after,
a new spacecraft is arriving

at the same spot where
George's rocket crashed.

It is more advanced and it
is landing softly.

One man, Mark gets off
the spacecraft.

He speaks to the microphones
and camera

lens mounted on the rocket's
fuselage:

"All is as in the retrieved
memo package. "

He glances at George's
petrified face.

"They are beautiful, he says,

"a little funny, old-fashioned.

I am coming down to a rendezvous
with people. "

There is a crackling noise
in his headphones.

"How am I doing?", Mark replies,
"I am fine.

Not to be with you, believe
that you do not exist? Good idea!

May it not hurt. Kisses for Aza".

He breaks off the connection.

Mark is descending from
the mountains.

At the mountains' feet,

where breathing is possible
a crowd is swarming.

They are monks,

for generations gazing at
inaccessible peaks

where George has gone and where
from Mark is descending now.

They have been waiting
for him

because the prophecy says that
in due time a new,

young God will come,
the Victor,

the one who will liberate
the people from the terror

of the hideous evil big birds
called the Sherns,

the inconceivable
and cruel monsters

which flew from across the sea
and turned the people into slaves.

"Come on, I am not a Savior"
- Mark laughs-

"I am human like you."

The father superior
smiles slyly:

"Because you want it this way".

It is not the faith of
these downgraded people
that enraptures Mark,

but the uprising which breaks
out at the news of his arrival.

The Sherns' army

are half-human creatures which
the Sherns beget with women.

They are called Morques.

They are beastly, strong
and dumb.

They put up stiff resistance.
Battles multiply.

The last of the battles
takes places on the seashore

where a human settlement
is huddled under the ground

and where the high-priest
Malahuda lives.

Where is the high-priest?!
Where is Malahuda?!

We come to pay tribute...
In the lead of the uprising...

- And check... If this is the victor...
- lf,

if, if...

Grab him, bind him up,
punish him...

I should have killed you.

They mustn't see you
wounded, sir.

Hurry!

We shall find the high traitor who
has not come to meet half way.

The father of your fiancee,
sir,

whom you will fall in love with,
because she is your destiny.

- Begone!
- Then we will see who was right,

the one who for centuries
had waited in the mountains,

or the one who had humbled
himself and served!

Get out!

Nor did I realize what I was
or what I could learn with ease.

What remained was the ease

of using
my own intelligence

which was searching out an
adult aim,

while I was still an adolescent.

The most stupid thing is to fail to
understand one's own charm.

- Who are you?
- We are actors, sir, saints.

We must not take part in battles
nor die with people...

nor cross the thresholds.
We serve, sir.

You are human.

It's good.
I can play you.

Why are you crying, child?

Our underground state, sir...

where we have gathered for
centuries to celebrate
the promise of your coming.

Sects were established here
of suicides and flagellants...

poets and iconoclasts...
Here the monks wrote prophesies.

Up there was the abyss of darkness,
so dark as the soul of man...

For the soul of man accepts the Shern,
justifies his actions...

talks to him as if it was
dreaming awake.

This is your church, sir...

Sir, they are moving out!

But they are ridiculous.

Defenceless.

A defenceless is strong,

good is bad,
beautiful - in worms.

Is that all, the end?

The Shern Aviya has not
been caught, sir.

Now reinforcements will fly
from across the sea.

Mark visits the high-priest

who hands over power and tells
him about his daughter lhezal

consecrated to the victor
and the cult of the Old Man.

The young warrior Yeret is in
love with lhezal.

"It was me who talked to
the Sherns,

begging them to reduce the
size of tribute.

I bargained for human lives

and I tried hard to grasp
the meaning of lawlessness,

the absurdity of their way
of life" says Malahuda.

He is tired. " The faith is coming
to an end" - he says -

"since you have come.
Now reality is beginning".

I am alone.

A prince in the middle of an icy
room built in icy space.

I carry my own space in me.

I am carrying it to an absurd
country at an absurd time.

As if the entire world,
the big one and the one inside me

merged into a hateful vision
of their bodies

looking for
meaning in one another,

the meaning which the bodies
cannot accommodate.

Do not look there, sir.

The Sherns caught children.
They did to them...

Their mothers said

that the Sherns wanted to see
a demon inside a human being,

- to see how the soul leaves the body...
- And you put up with that?

There is no way to understand
them, sir.

The Morques say that their nearness
is poetic nearness.

But it stinks here!

Don't laugh, sir.

The Sherns have each an eye
in the centre

of their foreheads and they
speak with that eye.

Keeping silent, they speak,

they say that this is
beautiful:

We are defective,
they say.

We cannot direct the evil
in ourselves,

- nor the force.
- They are killing you.

Perfunctorily.

You won't understand
why they let some live,

while exterminating others.

- Didn't you negotiate with them?
- They don't negotiate, sir.

Until they realized that they
could take women,

they had swarmed this place.
At that time they still could fly.

Now they are lying around,
watching.

They play with that eye
of theirs. We can feel it.

Across the thickest walls
we feel anxiety.

- Then we see everything.
- Everything!

Nothing! Nothing!

Nothing, sir. There is a sect
of scientist who claim

that they are not there,

that they are only
a reflection of ourselves

called out from the dark.

They are what?

I don't know.

- Do you believe them?
- No, sir.

And do you believe in me?

Who are you?

A man.

Hours of lead.

Nights of lead.

Lead in the heart.
The heartache turned into lead.

Thoughts of lead, of nothing, of lead.

The lead cancer eating my body,
fluid as an amoeba.

An amoeba in my selfishness,

in its right to search out the
places of greater delight.

She's playing a woman sir,
the one you had left to come here.

What?!

You did leave her, sir.

- The one you had left to come here.
- How do you know?!

It's in the prophecy.

- Don't remember!
- What?!

The high-priest's daughter, sir.
She is asking you not to return.

- Where?!
- To Earth, sir.

Fear the signs of fornication,
the signs of decay,

the rotten signs of blindness on
the fallen body of a woman...

Don't fear what is, because there
is only what you do not feel.

It is terrible to be caught in the
hands of the living God!

Aza!

- And thus I shall be called, sir.
- Lhezal!

Aza!

I want to go up the mountain
and be left alone,

without you.

I knew you would come.

If you are an intelligent being,
as they say, you are curious.

You think: Who is that man?
Where is he from?

I saved your life.
I did not denounce you.

They would have beaten you
dead and I would not have
learned anything.

Maybe you will talk to
me instead.

After all I will comprehend
who you are.

I hear.

I am trying to understand.

You are me. I am you.

Everything is identical.

Even when I think I am talking
to myself, I am talking to you.

Even when I think I am talking
to God, I am talking to you.

You are the gateway,
you are the tunnel way,

you are the light of the
ultimate threshold.

This is bullshit.

How? How?

What with?

What is this? I don't know this notion.
I don't know this.

I don't comprehend this.

That we are brothers...
that we together...

You have changed the track
of thought.

You've been only a step away.
I have been...

Now I see only flashes...

You say... No...

Light...

Why do you repeat...
God...

why death.

Why resurrection.

Come back!

You are the survival,
because you are not closed,

because you resolve in
your power the time

and the air and the contradiction
that we are, the animals.

I am an animal among
the animals. A wolf in the forest.

The one who has devoured all
is the only one.

Only he endures.
Those he has devoured are meagre.

One must bleed them

to get the nightmare
off the chest

and to have cold return to
the realm of cold.

Excellent, excellent.

How do you know?
Why do you repeat her name?

Aza!

Aza!

What does she hold against me?
That she had succumbed to me,

while I have never entirely
succumbed to her?

When am I entire?

I, in whom an eternal battle
of darkness fights.

You, come here!

Aviy!

Oh Martha! ...People!...

The Victor!

Keep on talking to me...
monster,

damn you!

Leave it!

- Chain him. I will talk to him!
- Were you alone in a Shern's company?

- She caught him.
- Maybe the signs will appear on her!

- Enough! I give the orders here!
- Sir, the law says that such woman...

I am the law here.

I take her in my care.
She is mine.

I didn't know what bliss is.

I don't know how it is not to
take responsibility for oneself.

Everything here is yours,
sir, you liberate.

How do you feel facing the
Victor, louse?

I shall serve him with all
might until doom.

The Victor is unjust...

You are standing over the
captive evil.

Let the good be good,

even suffering...

Yes, yes, yes.

I am tired,

- Hush!
- Tired.

Listen.

You've taken me.
I am yours.

I would be consecrated to you
even if you did not come.

Then everybody would take me.

I would be a woman of the temple

and the children that I would bear
would be killed.

I accept everything you do.
I am you.

I am what you are.

- Do you love Yeret?
- I love you. Nobody.

I came here out of the frailty
of the heart.

I was betrayed by a woman I loved,
the only one for whom...

for whom nothing seem to
matter anymore.

Such is the power others
have over us.

What have I?
Who have I... What am I?

One blow with a knife was
enough for a dark balloon
to break loose

and begin to drift away
and the traveller

who thus far has built for him
a cocoon out of air alone,

saw the dark of the night
and began to scream:

I am in the prison of my
own freedom,

in the hell of the one who
is watching...

I can afford to love you
and that woman.

Be.

Don't think!

It will not hurt me!

And yet I am alive!
Alive!

You must not tell anybody
what happened here.

Yes.

- I was mindless.
- If you wish, sir.

- I am weak.
- Yes.

I am a man...

from Earth.

I am the one who has taken
you inside me.

You are of two minds, sir.

You have not finished your work,
and you hesitate whether to go back.

I know who you want to
talk to, sir.

My father,
to have him off your way

and to Shern Swiny because
he opposes you.

Do you feel disgraced?
Spurned?

I love you, sir,
as nobody ever will.

...one who has arrived from There,
from the depth of faith.

From beyond life, from beyond
death and resurrection:

The Old Man. From today the
absence of this faith

will be punished with all
severity...

Worthless are those who
do not believe... The faithful...

Now either a retaliation
by the Sherns...

or our fire across the sea...

May the white Shern hands never
take our women away.

To arms, you faithful!

To the troops of Yeret!
To the troops!

I am sure that you understand...

Yesterday was the night,
the heat of battle.
Today it is different.

I have come to ask you...

They are getting ready to
cross the sea.

However cruel and inhuman
you are,

there must be some truth in you,
your truth...

I'd like to talk to you...
They tell me about your crimes.

I don't know...

Tell me

if we reflect the transformation of
the visible into the invisible?

I believed that any extremes of
faith and illusion

were equally unjustified
and unimportant,

and that in the depth of everybody,
there is goodness.

Everything is truth.

There is a grain of truth
in everything what exists...

I am to do what I like...
As anyone...

You are saying it with
such contempt.

I can feel your hatred,
indifference... Why?

Across the sea, the city
is beautiful, sweet and rich.

I am not asking you about it.
I am asking you this:

You said that everything
has a name,

an ulterior principle.
What is the answer.

Where is the place

where everything unites
and becomes one. Does it become?

Keep on talking.
It's beautiful.

I don't understand a word.
I feel fear. Chaos. Darkness.

I can hear. It's the motion of water.
No, of the night,

no, it's the motion of the motion,
the motion of the will.

What do you want to say?

Irrationality. Slavery.

A kind of ritual human murders
as the objective?

Cruelty as a virtue?
Inertia of the totality.

Then why do you spit on me?

You give me nothing but contempt

and contempt
can take you nowhere.

I can hear...
its power over me is infinite.

Whose power?
Whose power?!

You are an animal.

- You are an animal and yourself.
- So you talk!

No, it's you hear...

- So why are you talking?
- Because you give me food.

So, do you want to live?

I don't know. What do you think?
Am I alive?

You are an animal...
So you are alive...

Is it only the animal in you
that is alive?

What about that which lives
through the animal?

I, I don't understand.

You are an animal and so am I.

I am consistent.
You are not.

I am a reflection of what
is in you.

You are not a reflection
of what is in me.

I want to know one thing only.
Earth, the planet you come from.

- What is it?
- A Star, you see? A star.

I forgot.

Their conceit, rush to death,

my death,
for I see myself in them.

The image of her in the ecstasy
of love... impaled on him,

screaming. You say... within.
To get inside.

To exerete. The same.
Infinity is within.

I don't love.
Loving is inward...

Not a person, not things,
not myself.

By loving everything, you are everything
and you are unconcerned.

You come in contact with the
existence of truth,

with the name of animality
without which you would not be...

Oh, I see. Beyond words.
Truth... evil...

they signify nothing.

I yearn for this pain...
this flow.

Now I feel melted.
Rock...

Water! I feel your non-human
transparence. Total cool...

I am a nobody.

I have always been a nobody.

I hated and despised the
reconciled ones.

Now I, I am the most despicable.

Because I have come to terms
with myself.

I will not change anything
in the world.

My illusion is not even a ripple on
the world's cool, metallic surface.

I can see...
It is an ocean.

You are showing its beauty to me.

Speak slower,

speak slower!

It is opening.

Slower. I am in the doorway.

Slower, it hurts.

So much beauty it hurts.

I was taught to be intelligent,
efficient, cool...

to conquer...
I have no feelings.

Who? How?

What am I to do?

Unbind myself...
These irons break your wings...

Worms are eating your skin...
You are beautiful... You are divine...

I love you. Master...
I want to vanish in your wisdom.

He wants to take you!

It's God!

You hear something which does
not exist at all...

He doesn't say anything you
wouldn't know...

- I can hear this!
- This God is in you, God!

How... How do you know this?
Woman?

I am playing it... I know it.

I can feel birth and death,
truth and untruth of everything.

She lied and committed adultery
there for months.

You are only beginning to
learn about others.

You are only beginning to perceive...
to sense...

The only important things is
what you demand from yourself.

You are too wise for me.

He is speaking to you...
singing you.

I can feel it from the anxiety
in me.

He is laughing at you...
He is saying...

saying that you have never
taken and you will not take

because you are dry and dead...
and you are not alive at all,

because you are an object
created by objects,

and you don't know the name
nor the meaning...

Neither you know anything
about yourself...

- a blind man... a weakling.
- No... no!

Take him!

I've been learning...

for many years. You know, victor,

constrained by my duties

on sleepless
and doubt-ridden nights

I thought that as I would be
going and learning,

I would turn inside out my
whole life like a glove.

Oh... Oh...!

Look!

I always thought there were
two ways.

As if playing this what we play
for real

did not give me any satisfaction.
Now I have it.

- Tell me how...! What am I to do?
- You know well,

certainly you do,
if you took my daughter

and made her a woman.

The Sherns.
What do you know?

You cannot beat the Shern in you.

Victor, you have probably
experienced it yourself.

If you could not beat one,

how are you going to beat
thousands?

As you see, I am playing

and making room for you.

You are to act.

The hope will return when
you are gone.

- What is hope?
- Hope is...

the faith in materializing
the form with oneself.

Groping in the dark.

I am yearning.

Everything endures.
I endure.

I increasingly think about
closing my eyes

and abstaining from everything.

I, an eunuch in the landscape
of despair.

Sir, we'll cross the sea.

I gave you gunpowder, ammunition.
You can go by yourselves.

But sir,
it is you who they worship,

in whom they believe,
for whom they are waiting.

- I'll give her back to you.
- You need a woman, sir.

Why does a Shern carry in him
the riddle of chaotic behaviour.

Why does evil act selectively and
why is its methodicalness absurd?

Although it is only what
I can think,

understand or utter,
the most absurd,

the most cruel thing I can afford.

What about courage?

We come to inquire about your
designs, sir?

The designs are laid down in
the prophecy.

It's long-past knowledge.
Why are you asking?

Sir, you must appear before
the people in all ceremony.

The unclear rumor has spread in the
town that the sea did not come apart

when you looked at it.
Sir, it's necessary to levy taxes.

We need metal,

saltpetre,

manpower.

You have decided, sir.

People of low faith.
Can it be otherwise?

Am I not right, gentle?

You have all knowledge, sir.

World!

What have I done not to
comprehend you?

- Are you satisfied?
- Sir, we are absorbing you.

You are in us like marrow
in the bones,

- What did you say?
- Like the cause in existence.

Nothing, nothing, sir.
You let us rejoice.

They are playing... That at first
the Shern out of vanity

created the world which
seemed ideal for him.

But when he looked up,

he saw the light which he did
not create himself.

Then he returned to his homeland.
And then his masculine creative power

turned into the feminine
readiness.

Oh, sir, how hard I am trying!

Gentle Malahuda, her father,

is seen hanging around
town at nights. He derides you,

- undermines the faith of the people.
- What does he say?

That peace will return only
after you are gone...

I did not come to bring peace,
but war.

- Gentle Rhoda...
- Who?

A scholar, sir.

He improved the weaving plant,
invented the fuel for the flame,

- measured the length of the roads...
- What does he say?

He claims there is no Earth,
there has never been the Old Man,

that everything is silent and empty.

And that only we exist and
the Sherns who are like animals.

So where do I come from,
in his opinion?

He says you are like a worm, sir,

- that you came up to the surface...
- So why did I come?

You did not come,

you were expelled.

- Where is Yeret?
- Yeret is leading the parade.

The Morques we have caught will be
slaughtered in your honour, sir.

You did not tell me that you
have caught somebody.

- Not somebody, sir, something.
- You don't instruct me, fool.

Nobody will be killed here
without my consent.

Well, yours is all knowledge, sir.

Indeed you are a man.
I recognize your anger.

I am being carried by the
river of love.

It may be disgrace, betrayal and pain,

but it encompasses good
and evil.

It is good, if it is love.

But... after all, the only thought
which sets the thoughts in motion,

the only fidelity
which gives a form

to something which is the chaos
of churning biology,

it's fidelity to the
pre-determined goal...

Only it gives the feeling that
the emptiness of this chaos

can be spanned with the braces
of one's own making.

Certainly... but everything
is of my own making
and so is the understanding

that everything is everything,
that it is a well without
echo and bottom.

Did you like me?

Sir, stand on her.
Give her dignity back.

They will kill me!

Leave me alone!

What?!

Morques,

I don't believe you descend
from your fathers alone...

You must have something human
in you after your mothers.

I am appealing to what
is human in you.

Morques, your lives will be
spared, if you join us,

if you go with us.

Morques!

Mother, mother...

chains...

child... mother.

Kill nothing, you - nothing.

Oh Shern.

Everything - pain.
Sleep - pain.

Day - pain. Fear.

Quiet, Shern. I - Shern.

When the Shern sings.
I - animal.

You - less. You - death.

I - the bow. Trees. Grass.

I - see - Morque.
You - fear. I - the run.

Alone. I go.

I far. You near.
You fear - pain.

Weight. You - voice.
I - silence.

We - go away, perish, float.

You - Shern. Let him sing.

I see the earth, grass, forest.

I feel the warm air over
the lane...

The flight of two grey birds which
I associate with death...

It means... I feel fear?

Unbind Aviya!

Lhezal has just asked to
bring him here.

What?

Whoever will know the world,
will find a corpse.

And who finds a corpse,

will have the world not
worthy of him.

Elem wants to burn them in pyres.

He is right, sir.

They already are nothing.

A Shern's touch burns
out their sex.

When they still speak,
they speak about the delight as great

as to be hideous, sir.
The Shern touches in them

what is their essence,

darkness itself
and he opens it even more,

fills it up, clears up.

You sound as if you yourself...

I know nothing, nothing.

What do you want?

What am I to do?
How am I to defend myself?

I didn't know that there can
be a love so great.

On Earth things are different.

- Is there day and night?
- Yes.

- White and black?
- Yes.

- Love and hate?
- There is no killing on Earth.

There is killing when there
is living.

No.

What do you feel?

Joy and the power of
fulfillment.

You teach me something which
I did not know.

I feel love.

But now only my body is
suffering.

The pain that I feel is
only physical.

I can touch it. I also can,

oh, new art, tell myself;
turn your thoughts away from her.

May she not be present so that
you don't suffer.

Thus, through my pain-swollen
body,

the soul is shaping up smoothly,
soothingly,

and, I would say,
not-materially.

The soul does not suffer.

I recognize unconcern in it,
like in a warm river.

My soul and I identify.

She was beautiful and famous?

Yes.

You never loved her.

What is this for?

For your going tomorrow.

To pay homage to what is and not
to reject anything of what is not.

The tangibility of evil
which we see around.

The submission to the narrow
labyrinths

of one's own sensual passion.

The belief in the importance
of those who wield power over us

means the creation of evil,
calling evil from the dark,

transforming onself into
a killer gland which believes
that everything is its property.

Why are you concerned with
a woman, sir?

Holiness enters a man as he gains
histeric purity of the visitation.

- Visitation of what?
- The Shern,

sir.

What if the Shern is evil,
while I am God for you.

What is greater and more tranquil
than God?

There will be great heat after
a long night.

- It's time to move, victor.
- Guard her, remember, preserve.

You feel it?

Feel it?

Those who have not showed
their faith...

treacherous women...

Those who have hidden their
sons from the expedition

and those who have not
paid the taxes... I remember you.

- What is your name?
- Sevim, sir.

- What were you?
- A priest.

Will you serve?

Against whom, sir?

The sea is tranquil and a gentle
breeze is propelling the ships.

Before they reach their goal,
they come across a floating tree

trunk on which Actor and
scholar Rhoda are drifting,

because they have been expelled
for their lack of faith.

Scholar is looking at
Mark with contempt.

"You do not exist at all"
- he exclaims.

- "You have not come at all".
Mark replies:

"If I die, go in the mountains
and find my rocket.

Get in, seal the hatch
and press one button.

The red one. "

- "Rely on me, sir".
Actor exlaims.

- "I will transmit you".

"My oxygen helmet

is in the monastery of
Expectant Brethren at the
feet of the mountains" - Mark says.

"You are sly" - Rhoda replies.

"You are leaving me in the
middle of the sea,

while you talk about the
mountains. "

- "Yes" Mark answers.
"Our odds are the same".

Mark!

Mark!

Do you hear me?
Mark!

Aza!

The next step,

the next doorstep which I will have
to occupy with all of me

is death?

- Speak.
- Still nothing.

What if I didn't want to ask
you about it?

When her truth speaks,
her darkness speaks.

And clear is only that which is
being formulated against itself.

- Speak.
- Still nothing.

What if I didn't want to ask
you about it?

There.

I must know.

There, there...

Here,

- not there. Here.
- There. I must see.

Ultimately, every reduction
to physiology

is the fascism of the soul.

It is shrinking instead
of growing,

just as if everything
came down

to the judgement that while
living, man does nothing.

And only a cripple

or a dead man creates.

"Master Jack",

the porters says, standing at
attention before him.

Dressed in the same garb
as him,

members of the audience are
sitting in a huge dilapidated hall.

They are leaning,
their eyes riveted to Aza

who is standing and singing in
one brightly-lit end of the hall.

The hall acoustics is fine.

Aza is singing what the actors
are playing:

About themselves, about their
divine self-love. I, Me, I.

Jack shuts his eyes,

takes a few steps back,
stumbles and runs out.

- What is going on with you?
- A mistake.

That quack gave me some
nasty stuff.

No news from Mark?

We sent him there to make
our love stronger.

- Yes.
- Now.

- Now is ever. Now. Here. Ever!
- Love, love, we make love.

In a few months

your girlishness, beauty and
youth have disappeared.

You have grown old and your
face scares me.

For any push to the end brings
matter to the self-explosion,

as if beyond a certain barrier
there was a pulp

with death at the bottom.

Again you are one of many.

You are taking part in
an auction.

You exist through your
love affair.

But you don't know that it is not
you who sets the price,

the value in this market,

that the hand which
fumbles inside you

and which cruelly turns your
glands inside out,

is the hand of the very principle
of the market,

the murderous hand or eye

which finds the pleasure
in seeing how the actors,

lustful like dogs, are wearing out.

Ceiling-high metal office

cabinets are standing in
rows in an aisle.

The drawers,

hundreds of identical drawers
are filled with electron tubes

similar to old radio-set valves.

All tubes are the same.
Mark bends down over them.

The Sherns swoop down on him.
Mark is firing his weapon.

A still shining eye creeps
out to the floor from the head

of a killed Shern and Mark repeats
silently after its final glint:

"That is all".

Thousands of Shern eyes,

thousands of Shern brains are
laying in the drawers, waiting.

Mark looks at the murals
on the temple walls.

They are rotten and time-mellowed,
but readable,

they depict Sherns in thrones,
posing, pompous,

holy Sherns gazing up at
the highest,

supreme Shern and still higher
into the clouds, with adoration.

Mark's lips silently articulate
the words:

"Home". "Home".

Aza,

are you crazy?!

I am crazy! I am crazy!

You see,

you can arrive at a state
in which you must admit,

submit, let your guts out,

as if recognizing that this
is just inside,

and that the sight of your entrails
means giving up the secret,

exposing and discarding your ego...

without remainder.

You,

and if not you, then who?

I?

We are pleased with your
coming, sir,

...but you had gone so many and you
are coming back so few!

War, diseases.

We were told by Yeret,
who you sent in advance,

that you have done all
in the human power,

the human power and nothing
beyond it.

- Where is Yeret?
- But he is at your side.

We sent him back with reinforcements,
as you demanded.

Don't you remember?

- I was sick.
- So we heard.

What for?

For the lack of faith,
of course.

The faith does not call for
the gift of grace,

- but life alone does.
- Why did we retreat, sir?

We should have held out to
the end for man, to the end.

It is said:

Who comes to know oneself,
comes to know God.

I already know who I am.

And you, brother?

Secret killings have been rife
since your left, sir.

People are in panic.
You have retreated.

- Their anger will be terrible.
- Where is lhezal?

Lhezal!

Lhezal!

Get up! Get up!

You are the only man
without a secret.

You speak about it,
but you don't believe.

You are like an animal
following a scent.

Still the same.

You are an actress playing
the value of the feeling,

its transience.

You are a biology

speculating about the
mystery through your belly

into which you lead the heat which
you in turn take to be yourself.

Because we are sinful and dead.
We call from the depth.

Let us creep to the grace of
your resurrection,

melt in your goodness

and experience your mercy
in order to attain resurrection

together with you,

mystery, because we are
small and dead.

Lhezal!

Why are you hiding?

I missed you so much!

I waited.

I knew that only my fidelity
mattered... my chastity...

- and our mutual attachment.
- Why don't you let me touch you?

- Your words are so indistinct.
- Maybe we are sick, sir...

sick of evil and passivity.

Maybe we live momentarily like an ulcer.
And you want to rearrange our destiny.

Maybe I am a disease turning
towards the new...

- unfamiliar freshness.
- I don't understand you!

Sweet are my embraces,
remember, sir?

My, they are nothing compared
with the delight which the
whole body can feel...

if it wants, if it is in rapport
with the feelings.

I am a body, sir!

Splitting.

The idea of splitting.
Self-consciousness in splitting.

There is duality of nature here
and duality of life.

The thought of duality is part
of my nature.

It's the contradiction between
form and desire...

Between the answer and the
language of darkness.

Hence I am God.

- I am God.
- Come, sir.

Sir!

Sir,

your spacecraft. Sir.

The Expectant Brethren saw it rise
on a column of fire...

I don't want to see any more.
I want to know.

I want to be there.

You - here. There - nothing.

Nothing is there.

Everything is here.

You may die.

I beg you.

I am not afraid of dying.

The sea!

We must change their cruel laws,
expel the priests,

give an equal share to the people,
destroy false hopes.

- They will not agree.
- Then we alone will do it.

The guns.

Against whom?

The city,

the city.

Oh, they are right, sir.

Blessed be him who was
before he became.

And you shall become
those who are passing by.

The Shern Aviy sits above
Marek's head.

He is watching, curious

and jeers: "Hail, brother".

"Without that eye which
somebody had programmed for you,

which perhaps you yourselves
programmed

when you still could think"
- says Mark.

The Shern answers:
And who has programmed you? ".

"Who am I?"- Asks Mark.

The Shern churns some dirt in
his claws against the wooden cross

and replies: "You are this".

"Will I ever emerge from
this darkness"- asks Marek.

"It does hurt, brother,
doesn't it? "- answers Aviy.

Jack fires at him.
The Shern drops down on the sand,

revolving more and more slowly,

like a dying spring toy.
He keeps repeating:

"Love, love, love."

Force, my force, you have left me!

Who?!

What?!

Why?!

Welcome...

grace.

How much can one accept?

How great is the mercy
to be felt?

How much can you afford not to
change into a Shern yourself.

In a casino, astronauts are playing
roulette and at baccarat.

Jack is passing by listening
to shreds of conversations.

Somebody says: "He was not to blame.

He was an animal among animals,
a wolf in the forest".

Somebody else reacts: "Soul has its
abode not in the brain,

but in the form. "
A third voice:

"The Angel symbolizes the
transfiguration

from the visible into the invisible
which we are accomplishing. "

Television screens along one side
of the hall flick to life,

showing the pictures
registered by the camera
mounted on Mark's rocket.

The camera apparently is stimulated
to action by an outside motion
or human body warmth;

the scholar Rhoda and the Actor are
crawling towards the rocket,

sharing an oxygen helmet.

Jack is shouting to them,
but they don't hear.

Scurrying by George's
dead body,

the Actor and Rhoda enter
the rocket.

The casino manager grabs
Jack by the arm, saying:

"Master,

they are looking for you.
Strikes, demonstrations.

The conspiracy of Gnostics...
Those, who know, should..."

At one end of the baccarat
table lhezal is seated,

wearing Aza's dress.

She is laughing provocatively,
looking at Jack.

She is surrounded by admirers.

The face of Jack's assistant
appears on the screens.

Master, we have a signal.

Keep talking.

Where's Marek?

Who sent you?

We can see you.

There is white, round-shaped
light over you.

There is the eye which can see us.

Speak to the eye...

We are going to Earth's interior

where resides the truth

and the happiness of man

and the explanation of all
mysteries.

Because we are right since ever...
since ever...

Right. Right. Right...

- He's gone mad.
- No, he is performing.

Master, we can bring them
over to us.

They are close enough,

master.

Let them fly.

Where to, master?

To Old Earth.

Jack turns his back to
the screen.

Very slowly he is sinking
to his knees

and bending down to the ground.

It's the heart stroke.
Jack is dying.

The astronauts rush to help.

They are pounding his chest
with fists. Nothing doing.

From the corner of the hall,
master Jack is watching his death.

The astronauts are struggling
to revive his body

and nobody pays attention when
he is walking out the casino.

It is dark outside.

There are bonfires far out
in the steppe.

Over the bonfires the tribe
is sitting. The same tribe.

There is Rider there and there
is a girl with eyes in her palms,

so very much like lhezal.
Jack is coming up to her.

She rises to her feet
and opens her arms.

The camera moves into the
darkness of her body.

Her even heart-beat
becomes audible.

A moment later,

the hoof-beats of a horse
riding away.

The final shot of this film

recorded in the screenplay
was the following:

428. Long shot. 3 metres.

In the dawning light:

A horse without a rider
galloping across the steppe.

Under the decision of the
vice-minister of culture

undersecretary of state for
Polish cinema,

the shooting of the film
"On the Silver Globe"

was broken off in the spring
of 1977.

At that time the film crew
were staying on the Baltic seacoast

and the entire suite
of decorations and costumes

needed to complete
a 2-year-old production

had been finally created and awaited
the film crew in Wroclaw,

Lower Silesia,
in the Masuria Lake District
and in the Caucasus Mountains.

All these decorations,
costumes and props were destroyed.

Film studio workers, wardrobe
specialist and art designers

have preserved for many
years in warehouses

and their private apartments

whatever they managed to
salvage from the destruction.

I'm finishing this film
thinking about them.

Meanwhile the small drama
of this film

and the grand and hopefully
dignified drama of our life

will continue to intertwine

in a common mosaic of successful
flights and crash landings.

My name is Andrzej Zulawski,

the director of the film
"On the Silver Globe".

Starring: