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CAPSULE: JOHN LILLY AND THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE (2025)

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DIRECTED BY: ,

FEATURING: Voice of

PLOT: A biography of pioneering cetologist and “psychonaut” Dr. John C. Lilly.

 

COMMENTS: John Lilly may best be known to readers of this site as the inspiration behind the canonically weird Altered States. The real Lilly seems to have lived a life that actually was “stranger than fiction.” A neurophysiologist by training, Lilly began his research career during the height of Cold War paranoia. The term “brainwashing” was first coined in the 1950s, when Lilly’s initial studies of mammal brains were designed to achieve “push-button control of animals and people.” In the 1960s he embraced the use of psychedelic drugs, leaving behind military research in favor of the counterculture. He described his moment of enlightenment as a “very bizarre and weird feeling.”

Almereyda and Stephens’ documentary traces the gamut of Lilly’s life-long research interests, from his early days hooking monkey brains up to cathode ray TVs to a daily self-experimentation regimen involving hourly doses of ketamine. What comes across is a portrait in contrasts. Though he came to see himself as living outside the bounds of mainstream “consensus reality,” American culture readily absorbed Lilly’s ideas.

Lilly is responsible for our belief that dolphins are intelligent creatures, and inspired the Greenpeace effort to “Save the Whales,” igniting an interest in environmentalism. He popularized the analogy likening the human mind to a “biocomputer”; he believed that only through the perception of other realities can we break free from our “programming.”

Lilly’s “feeling of weirdness” resulted from the realization that the animals he had been researching were not just test subjects but thinking, feeling creatures, whose intelligence and sense of consciousness could equal that of humans and, in some cases, even exceed us. After studying the brains of cats, monkeys, and dolphins, he decided to focus on dolphins, convinced they would have some ancient wisdom to impart to human beings.

The film’s makers present all facets of Lilly’s research and impart his intense curiosity regarding the mind and how it works. His evolution from straight-laced government scientist to drugged-out psychonaut proceeds without judgment. In the beginning, Lilly comes across as eccentric even when appearing on ’60s talk shows, likening inter-species communication to an alien encounter. In one episode the host is quick to point out that Lilly is a real doctor and not “some nut!”

The narration touches on important ethical issues regarding animal research, but never delves too deeply. Lilly’s personal fortune gets a

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CAPSULE: BARBECUE THEM (1981)

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Souvliste tous! Etsi tha paroume to kouradokastro

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DIRECTED BY: Nikos Zervos

FEATURING: Konstantinos Hristidis, Dimitris Poulikakos, Thekla Tselepi

PLOT: The daily escapades of a group of hippies, two men and two women, in 1980s Athens.

Copy Barbecue This! (1981)

COMMENTS: The tale begins after the clumsy introduction of our protagonists, each presented with a distinct musical theme. We follow a group of wannabe hippies with weird names like Daisy, Oratios and Kyros, as if taken out of Mickey Mouse comics.  This group, vagabonds in the eyes of society, live without regular jobs, indulging in free love, listening to rock and roll, and finding money mainly by asking their middle-class relatives. They wander through Athens and the surrounding countryside without clear purpose at first, but find one towards the end of the movie when they attempt to save a friend of theirs from a satanic psychiatrist. Yes, it is as silly as it sounds.

What we have here is a free-form, not exactly coherent, almost improvisational narrative portraying the underground rock music scene of 1980s Greece. Segments attack middle-class hypocrisy, from the pseudo-intellectual reporters who approach our characters pretending to be interested in the underground rock scene to portraits of traditional nuclear families hiding  wild instincts and a myriad of pathologies under a pretense of normalcy. This becomes the main focus of the second half of the film when one family’s daughter, Elenitsa, is put in a psychiatric hospital against her will. Our deadbeats attempt to save her.

This is not a movie that takes itself or its main characters too seriously, however. Daisy, Oratios, Kyros, and even Elenitsa claim to be idealists, but are proven hollow in the end, unable to bring about real social change. An alternative title of the movie roughly translates as “This is how we are waiting to take the castle made of shit?” This is exactly what one of group wonders about himself and his friends, underlining the hollowness of their rebellion. Their fight against the castle made of shit is in vain—because they do not really want to fight, they just want to have fun.

Dimitris Poulikakos, a well known rock musician in Greece, narrates the tale in voice-over. Polikakos also appears in Aldevaran (1975), an earlier Greek movie of a similar style portraying the underground art and music scene of the 1970s.  This movie also shares some DNA with other works of its director, Nikos Zervos, like Exoristos stin kentriki leoforo ( 1979). Not only are there common themes like the hollowness of the hippie lifestyle, but they share similar narrative approaches, defying traditional structures.

If it is not already clear, this is not exactly a surreal movie. It is a parody and deconstruction of middle-class morality and of counterculture idealism, but this only makes it slightly eccentric. It should be noted that technical aspects make it a difficult watch, as the audio quality is really bad. It will also be a real challenge for non-Greeks to find this one. Copies exist online—though not in well-known legit platforms—and some DVDs can be found, but without English subtitles.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE CATHEDRAL OF NEW EMOTIONS (2006)

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Die kathedrale der neuen gefühle

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DIRECTED BY: Helmut Herbst

PLOT: Members of a Seventies Berlin commune travel through space aimlessly in a shipping container clutched in a giant fist, until an amnesiac stowaway divulges information on the location of the commune’s founder.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Even in the world of animated psychedelic European science-fiction—a small niche, admittedly—there aren’t many projects that open with a naked figure trampolining on a small patch of bell peppers as the titles scroll by in the background. That turns out to be practically the baseline of “normal,” in light of what follows.

COMMENTS:  Various members of the commune/spaceship frequently repeat the phrase “My eyes are cast down in awe,” and it’s a fitting description of the experience of watching The Cathedral of New Emotions. Expanded from director/co-writer Herbst’s 1971 short, Cathedral follows the antics of a 1970s commune repurposed as soft 1970s sci-fi in the vein of or Samuel Delany. It’s like an animated Dark Star with sex and drugs, with a slight element of The Final Programme in the mix. When the spaceship is contained in a fist, hard science is not going to be a primary element, especially when the spacecraft has windshield wipers that sweep off detritus such as bugs and a Hawkman from “Flash Gordon.” The journey through space isn’t just physical. The main space of concern is the metaphysical: one character remarks that “he lives in his head,” and upon his rediscovery of commune founder Madson, a self-described “merchant of images,” he tells another that they are “also just fiction.” There’s a political element, with May ’68 and the Vietnam War referenced both directly and indirectly through the disaffected and somewhat aimless behavior of the “crew.”

Cathedral comes across as a smarter and hornier version of an offering made for stoners with brains. There is a lot of sexual imagery and content, both hetero and homo (a cocooned threeway, a visual pun regarding “blowjob”). If it’s still not clear, the lyrics of the Krautrock-styled theme song at the beginning and end of the film feature the chorus “You’re inside of me/Deep, deep inside of me, ohhh.” In keeping with the Adult Swim comparison, the closest  (watered-down) equivalent might be “Superjail!” (although that show features more grotesque cruelty and violence than sex.) Cathedral even has a pair of indeterminately gendered twins who serve roughly the same function as similar “Superjail!” pair, providing a mocking chorus and running commentary on the action. The TV cartoon’s design is also more grotesque than Cathedral‘s, although Herbst includes an element of grotesquerie related to sexual body horror.

Cathedral made its home video premiere courtesy of Deaf Crocodile as a (now sold-out) limited deluxe edition with a booklet including essays from Walter Chaw and Alexander McDonald and slipcover. The standard edition includes a commentary by German film historian Rolf Giesen that is as much a history of German animation as a discussion of this film (description is somewhat pointless because the film is experimental, Giesen says upfront, but he does talk about Cathedral and Herbst in the latter part of the commentary); a visual essay by filmmaker Stephen Broomer; “Container Interstellar,” the 7-minute short that was expanded into Cathedral; a 25-minute documentary examining Herbst’s work (mainly television shorts and an acclaimed documentary on the DADA movement); and an interview with Herbst, who died in 2021.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Defying any kind of logical description, the animated German sci-fi fever dream The Cathedral of New Emotions can proudly stand as the trippiest title released to date by Deaf Crocodile — and that’s saying something!”–Nathaniel Thompson, Mondo Digital (Blu-ray)

The Cathedral Of New Emotions [Blu-ray]

The Cathedral Of New Emotions [Blu-ray]
  • German director Helmut Herbst's long-lost animated sci-fi feature, a true hallucinogenic Space Freakout
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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: CHAPPAQUA (1966)

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DIRECTED BY: Conrad Rooks

FEATURING: Conrad Rooks, Jean-Louis Barrault, William S. Burroughs, Paula Pritchett

PLOT: A wealthy young American travels to Europe to receive treatment for his alcohol and drug addiction, fighting his urges, reflecting on his hedonistic past, and dreaming of more tranquil times.

Still from Chappaqua (1966)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: With a sometimes-poetic, sometimes-pretentious look at the travails of drug addiction and a fervent dedication to nonlinear storytelling, Chappaqua is messy but unusually sure of itself. There’s little doubt that first-time filmmaker Rooks got exactly the movie he wanted, and that movie is a surreal anti-narrative that by turns puzzles, annoys, and astonishes.

COMMENTS: The opening crawl is essentially the hero’s confession: in an effort to combat the alcoholism that began at the age of 14, our protagonist—Russsel Harwick, the alter ego of writer-director Rooks—turned to an impressive number of alternatives, including marijuana, hashish, cocaine, heroin, peyote, psilocybin and LSD. It’s the peyote that offers hope of breaking the cycle of rotating addiction, as a nightmare convinces him he’s hit rock bottom and leads him to seek a cure. Enjoy this moment; it’s the last time in Chappaqua where anyone makes an effort to explain what’s going on.

Chappaqua is Conrad Rooks’ barely disguised autobiographical account of his own struggles with drugs and drink, and he is bracingly frank about the depths to which he fell. He is selfish, rude, prone to breaking rules, and pathetic in pursuit of his next fix. We get to see what it’s like to operate in a drug-induced fog through such tools as an unsteady handheld camera, comical shifts in tone and perspective, and even a shocking black and white posterized vision of Manhattan. As a visualist, Rooks is rich with ideas. On the other hand, Russel is kind of unbearable to be around. (When he tussles with Burroughs in the writer’s cameo as an intake counselor, I half-hoped that Burroughs might pull a page out of his own history and shoot him.)

And yes, it’s that William S. Burroughs. Rooks hung out in New York with a number of future leading lights of the counterculture, and has said that he made Chappaqua after efforts to bring Naked Lunch to the screen fell through. But Burroughs is still a big part of this film even aside from his cameo, as Rooks used the author’s cut-up technique, deliberately editing out of order and throwing scenes in at random places, sometimes overlaid atop other scenes.

How Conrad Rooks came to be in the company of the likes of Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg (a fellow cameo beneficiary, annoying crowds by the Central Park reservoir by chanting and playing a harmonium) is a major component of any discussion of Chappaqua. An Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: CHAPPAQUA (1966) →

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CAPSULE: THE GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE (1968)

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DIRECTED BY: Jack Cardiff

FEATURING: , Alain Delon, Roger Mutton, Marius Goring

PLOT: The newly married Rebecca (Marianne Faithfull) absconds from her marriage bed and rides her motorcycle to meet her lover.

Still from Girl on a Motorcycle (1968)

COMMENTS: Rated X and released in 1968, The Girl on a Motorcycle wants to be a lot of things: erotic, trippy, rebellious, and philosophical, as well as a sex kitten vehicle for pop star Marianne Faithfull. But most of all, it wants to be a motorcycle movie about free love. Complicating matters, it’s also about S&M.

Girl was adapted, shot, and directed by Jack Cardiff, the foremost British cinematographer of the day. Cardiff used inventive (at the time) methods to shoot said girl on said motorcycle: rear projection, bike strapped to a flatbed, and, for mid-to-long shots, using professional motorcyclist Bill Ivy as a stand in. None of these are very convincing though, which is unfortunate since great swaths of the movie focus on Rebecca (Marianne Faithfull) on her bike while we hear her thoughts in voiceover.

The content of the voiceover doesn’t help the movie’s cause much either. Most of it is Rebecca pining ecstatically for her lover. Other parts seem like outright pandering to the youth, e.g., “Rebellion is the only thing that keeps you alive.”

This voiceover track plays while newlywed Rebecca rides through the French countryside clad only in a leather catsuit (hence the name of the American release, Naked Under Leather). Her motorcycle was a wedding gift from her lover, Daniel (Alain Delon). During this extended ride—which in reality would only take a couple of hours—she has plenty of time to ruminate about how square her husband is, how superior free love is, how marriage will soon be a thing of the past, and how great a lover Daniel is. Oh, and how much she loves her motorcycle. (Loves like Titane loves that Cadillac Coupe DeVille.)

Ostensibly, the ride is to take her to Daniel, a pretentious philosophy professor who treats her poorly and at times violently. But a lot happens along the way, including a psychedelic dream sequence, a psychedelic road trip montage, and a few psychedelic sex scenes.

During one stop along the road to writhe in grass, Rebecca is passed and leered at by a military convoy, which leads her to rant about how joining the military proves you hate your own freedom and likely have never had sex and probably can’t. This is a weird and jarring separation from the theme of the movie and sticks out as another attempt to pander to the youth of the day.

Other scenes also stand out as odd. In the very beginning there is a dream sequence in which Rebecca and Daniel are psychedelically going at it but are abruptly interrupted by clown faces. The husband plays cello in the center ring of a circus while Rebecca stands balanced on a moving motorcycle and Daniel, the ringleader, whips pieces of her one-piece leather suit off of her.

Another odd scene shows Rebecca contemplating a gray, straight-lined gas station. She’s complaining about it as a symbol of a society with no freedom (we get it already!) when an attendant in a bright orange jumpsuit comes out. At the sight of him, she freaks out—mouth open, trembling—and drives away.

Let’s not forget the post-coital motocross highlight reel.

Sadomasochism is never overtly mentioned, but Rebecca is choked and whipped and flogged with roses. Late in the movie, she realizes what she has with Daniel is not free love. She is attached to him and loves the control he exerts over her.

After sitting in a German café weighing her husband—a kind man who loves her but is boring—against Daniel—a cold man who doesn’t love her but is exciting—she chooses Daniel again. Riding off in an ecstatic state (facilitated by the vibrations of her motorcycle), the inevitable happens—inevitable in any ‘60s film about free love and motorcycles: a fiery crash. Less predictable is the helicopter pullback from the crash, at least a year before Easy Rider.

What makes this film truly unique is its audacity in continuously showing Faithfull over-emoting on a bike she isn’t riding. Nevertheless, as a vehicle to turn her into a sex symbol, it worked. Full-frontal nudity will do that.

Girl isn’t a good movie, but for viewers who appreciate kitschy ‘60s exploitation, it’s not a bad way to spend 91 minutes.

In 2023, Kino upgraded their Girl on a Motorcycle DVD to Blu-ray for the first time. It ports over Cardiff’s original commentary track from the DVD and adds an alternate commentary from film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, who analyzes the film through a feminist lens.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“A countercultural curio of almost painterly beauty…”–Joseph Jon Lanthier and Budd Wilkins, Slant (Blu-ray)