Stompbox: THE CATHEDRAL OF NEW EMOTIONS + W/ LIVE PERFORMANCE BY THE GREAT OCTOPUS

With a live performance by The Great Octopus before the film – cinematic synth accompanied by 70s cosmic animation on the big screen!

On a shortlist with Eiichi Yamamoto’s BELLADONNA OF SADNESS and René Laloux’s FANTASTIC PLANET as one of the most surreal, psychedelic and truly cosmic animated features ever made, German director Helmut Herbst’s THE CATHEDRAL OF NEW EMOTIONS follows a commune of Berlin stoners and intellectuals who get set adrift in space in 1972 in a packing container clutched in a giant flying hand. Imagine Ralph Bakshi animating an R-rated version of John Carpenter’s DARK STAR, or the cartoon equivalent of Can’s “Ege Bamyasi” or Pink Floyd’s “Astronomy Domine.” Narrated by the ship’s doctor Quistard in the same synthesized voice everyone uses, the crew spend their days staring into the pulsating light of the fusion reactor wondering about the outcome of the Vietnam War, or bemoaning their sexual inertia. Visually the film is like no other, filled with holographic blue phallus plants and characters morphing into gray fleshy blobs every time they pass a Black Hole, constantly disrobing and attempting to seduce each other (and despite the random nudity, the crewmembers are weirdly androgynous as if genders are becoming meaningless.) The movie’s genesis is equally strange: based on a 1974 film by Herbst called DIE PHANTASTISCHE WELT DES MATTHEW MADSON, CATHEDRAL was finished after a decades-long gestation in 2006 (Herbst passed away in 2021.)  One of the rarest and most obscure titles in world animation, CATHEDRAL has been newly restored from the original camera negative and sound elements by Deaf Crocodile with the cooperation of Herbst’s wife, Renate Merck. (DEAF CROCODILE)

Part of the Stompbox series!

Cast/Crew Info
Director: Helmut Herbst | Cast: