Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) User Reviews (22)

The search for love, identity and place in a Tokyo bar is a one of the great "unknown" films of cinema

[dbborroughs · 9/10 · 20 February 2006]

Eddie is a transvestite hostess at one of Tokyo's clubs. He/she spends her time working, being in the films of a friend, taking drugs and trying to find love.

Said to be one of Stanley Kubrick's favorite films and a big influence on Clockwork Orange this is probably one of the best films most people have never seen. Released in 1969 this film is as fresh and shattering as it must have been back when it was made. Set in a "Gay" world this is actually a movie about people and how they act and feel, the fact that they are gay is irrelevant. These are real people in a real world that seems to be happening now instead of when it was made (due no doubt to the stunning black and white photography). The film uses just about every 1960 "art film" technique you can think of and does so better than any film in from Europe ever did (Buñuel, and Bergman should have been this successful). Interviews of the cast, sudden juxtaposition of scenes, shifts in tone and style, sudden bursts of violence, all blend together to tell a story of a search for identity and place that is in its way universal, even if its outcome is not.

This is a movie that is simple to explain, but difficult to sum up. The effect of it being somewhat greater than the simplicity of the storyline.

See this movie. This is one of those movies that movie lovers should search out.

9 out of 10 (Because to be honest I'm not sure if I'm more in love with the technique or the film itself- though either way its a great film)

clean? :-) fun

[mingus_x · 8/10 · 14 October 2003]

If you really are looking for a good time in a movie theatre - watch this movie ! It has been said that some of Kubrick's visual and sonic ideas for "Clockwork Orange" were inspired by this movie; after having seen it, i'm more than convinced that this is true.

This movie offers a lot of cinematic ideas and it uses surprising ways to make a point within a story.

What is the reason that films with a spirit and mood like that have vanished from the screen ? Have the politics in the movie industry really become so strict ? This movie watched nowadays has (but maybe had always) a subversive feel to it, why is that ?

It definitely offers something different and therefore would be very welcome in movie theatres and videostores around the world to free us from all the uninspired formula movies.

Funeral Parade of Roses

[evanston_dad · 9/10 · 14 February 2019]

An unsettling and astonishing Japanese film that introduced me to the Japanese New Wave movement.

"Funeral Parade of Roses," like many of the best works of art, defies description or categorization. It dives into the Japanese gay sub-culture of the 1960s, and specifically young gay men who dress and act like women. It blurs the line between fact and fiction; at times, the actors in the movie become actors in a movie within the movie, and the movie itself becomes a documentary about the making of a movie about gay Japanese youths. If you can follow that sentence, then you're on the way to having the right sensibility to enjoy this film.

It's a shocking movie too, going places most other films at the time, and certainly few American movies, would dare. The only big American movie I can think of from that time period that comes even close to tackling subjects that general audiences would find equally unsavory is "Midnight Cowboy," and this film makes that one look like a Doris Day romp in comparison.

Grade: A

Disturbing but important work of gay world cinema!

[NateManD · 10/10 · 30 July 2005]

"Funeral Parade of Roses" is an underrated unknown work of Japanese gay cinema. It was one of Stanly Kubric's favorite films, and it had a significant influence on the the style of "A Clockwork Orange". The film deals with Japanese drag queens, including the clubs, rivalry and their sex lives. In an Oedipus fashion, except reversed, the main character kills his mother so he can have relations with his father. Director Toshio Matsumato seemed to be way ahead of his time for his portrayal of sexuality and violence on screen. Also in a Bergman like fashion, actors are interviewed so the audience realizes it's only a movie.(and a twisted one at that) The film has many hallucinatory scenes, and who could forget the drag queens using urinals. There's also a weird fight scene between the two drag queens, and when they yell comic bubbles pop out of their mouths. Thank God this movie is in black & white! It's very brutal, disturbing and violent at times; so watch with caution. "Funeral Parade of Roses", is simply shocking and brilliant!

The Mirror Sings Death

[tedg · 3 November 2007]

There are a few times in my filmgathering life where I have to make a choice between being thankful for a rich, big experience, and mourning the fact that I missed it when it could have mattered more. Each of these is a seed and this film could conceivably have been experienced by me decades ago. Would I have finer sculpture? Would every subsequent film that mattered cut deeper?

But then the better parts of me just enjoy the experience, part of which is wonder why the Japanese make the best French films. I think there's a discussion in there about cultural assertiveness and military failure seen as societal spaghettithinking.

This is an important film. It may matter to you. I recommend it.

Its not a story, though there is a small story in there: about two queens competing for the diva position at a transvestite club. Its about roles and masks and sight. It has within it a filmmaker and a radical film that we see from time to time. The film he is making blurs into the film we are seeing, with characters being interviewed both in character and as actors. We sometimes see the filming.

Imposed on both of these threads are a collection of flashbacks, referencing a violent event in Eddie's life. I think it a mistake to think of it as Oedipus, even though it ends in self- inflicted blindness.

And inside that is some street theater, the titular parade: a public street performance targeted against "the man." It involves gasmasks and a "corpse." Its mirrored by a repeated shot of the backs of several nude men (though some are likely women posing as men) with the last in the row — probably our chief character — with a flower between his cheeks.

Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

Breaking apart the form but keeping emotional resonance as incendiary and necessary

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 13 July 2021]

I know this term doesn't necessarily get thrown around much by critics when describing most films - though conversely it may be used too often when trying to pin a label on counterculture or subversive: films from the late 190s or into the 70s - but Funeral Parade of Roses is a fairly accurate example I think of a film that is kaleidoscopic. You can't say it's one thing or even three things because it will shape-shift or twist over into something else entirely.

The director Matsumoto clearly knows what the rules are for directing a "normal" scene, whatever that is, and by that I mean how to cut between shots and show two characters talking to each other, or to create some suspense between two sets of people (ie right before that girl gang fight, before it leads into the fast motion), and that's good because he's not just ready but committed to breaking the rules of film grammar and storytelling. Story? Who needs that when you can follow things by feelings and moods, or how deconstructing everything has its own construction (and the interviews are so crucial because it gives us a base of how real Trans women are in Japan, or at least those interviewed and how they, in fact, are the most "normal" ones here).

And even trying to ascribe Oedipus Rex, which I've read is what this leaps off from, is not something I would think immediately.... no, that's not entirely true. Where the film ends up, a particular revelation that brings to a climax what we saw midway through, in a jarring flashback involving crimes of unhinged passion that is shot and acted and presented without any pretense and yet has an air of how memory creating a heightened style of violence - being so real it becomes unreal and then loops around to real again - is staggering and shocking, not necessarily for the violence itself but for the effect of it, how there's so much of it that what has to come next is when other people see it, how spectatorship takes on another dimension... and isn't isn't what cinema does itself?

I'm not Trans and can't claim I can be wholly in the sense of knowing where characters like Eddy or Leda or the others are at or have been here, but that almost isn't an issue because of the raw power that Matsumoto brings as a director and that the performers like Peter bring in every frame (especially those where nothing is said but the face and physical movements tell more). I have also/however been in an environment with fellow film freaks as much Marijuana is consumed and weird unclassifiable shenanigans ensue (hey, college you know), and in a sense Funeral Parade of Roses is like witnessing creation while under the influence; when one is high, there can be a sensation if one is tapping into the creative spirit that you can (and *should*) do or try anything.

So why shouldn't Matsumoto cut to inserts of butts with one holding a rose? Why not the fast speed that feels like an homage to silent comedy (and lo and behold Kubrick followed suit)? Why not have flesh and body parts that have comet together through sex and lovemaking like abstract images, not connected to beings but still very alive (Hiroshima Mon Amour comes to mind, a little, but this is still a unique way to do it)? All those faces and reactions and how a person moves through a frame? Go for it!

Funeral Parade of Roses is last but not least a compelling example of how what seem to be condtradictions in execution are part of the intended style, of confrontational the audience to say that you can't take for granted what cinema can do. So sex and eroticism is silly... until it isn't. Violence can be quite silly and comical.. until it very much isn't. How someone chooses to be as a human being, identity as a gender, looks so theatrical with the long eye-lashes and coiffed hair and slathering of make up... but it's very much who these "Queens" are and that being a woman is not some parlor trick or game, or just a lustful object for men. Humans are complicated and so should cinema, and that's what I got from seeing this for a first time.

Uncompromising, unapologetic cinema

[tomgillespie2002 · 8/10 · 30 November 2013]

In a key moment around the half-way mark in Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses, the young protagonist Eddie, a transsexual working in Tokyo, stabs his mother's lover and then his mother himself. Matsumoto's film is full of Oedipal subtexts, but here Eddie kills his mother to (perhaps) get to his father, so it is the reverse of the Oedipus story. In fact, most of the film is 'backwards' in the traditional sense, full of narrative tricks, contrasting styles and shifts in tone, moving from melodrama to documentary to horror with each scene.

Eddie (played by real-life queen Pita) is a drag-queen working at a top Tokyo underground club ran by Gonda (Yoshio Tsuchiya). Eddie is the top attraction at the club, much to the envy of ageing madam Leda (Osamu Ogasawara). When Gonda starts a secret affair with Eddie, Leda finds out and plans to hurt and disfigure Eddie in her jealousy. Running alongside this fictional storyline are various interviews with the real-life queens who act in the film, who offer insights about life in Tokyo for queens and how the film will represent them.

There was a huge boom in Japan in the 1960's of films now known as Japanese New Wave. Funeral Parade of Roses is certainly one of the most daring and technically innovative, stripping back genre (and even cinematic) conventions to create one of the most important films in the history of Gay Cinema. This leads to an occasionally confusing and head- spinning film, that can switch quickly from a generic love scene to a moment of avant-garde (an argument between two queens have them shouting at each other with speech bubbles) to a bloody set-piece. One of the most inspirational films to come out of Japan, this was a favourite of Stanley Kubrick's, and no doubt the scenes that are played out in fast- forward were an influence on A Clockwork Orange (1971). Uncompromising, unapologetic cinema.

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Another Amazing Japanese New Wave Film

[Steven_Harrison · 10/10 · 8 February 2006]

Having only seen a couple of this director's films (Dogra Magra and War of the Sixteen Year Olds didn't impress me all that much) I was unprepared for the brilliance of this Godard like triumph. Diegetic ambivalence (is that a legal phrase?) and Brechtian film-making flood over the viewer (I believe the films of the Dziga-Vertov group were playing in Japan at this time, I don't doubt their influence on this.) The plot is simple, a cross dresser named Peter ("The Fool", from Kurosawa's RAN, who looks *very* feminine, his gender kept "secret" from the viewer for the first few minutes) is involved in the owner of the Shinjuku bar he works at, has a troubled past, and relives a homosexual version of the Oedipus story (maybe it's not so simple.) The late sixties produced *many* self-referential films from Japan's new wave (a few: Imamura's A Man Vanishes, Yoshida's Eros Plus Massacre, Shinoda's Double Suicide, Oshima's The Man Who Left His Will On Film, and Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, Hani's Inferno of First Love) and this is one of the most vibrant of the bunch. Roses, a symbol of homosexuality in Japan, dominate the landscape, and at some of the most serious and troublesome moments of the film there are interludes of interviews, or commentary, made by the filmmakers, actors, or apparently unconnected persons about the film you're watching. Where these would usually appear cheeky, they cut the heaviness of the film, and it works beautifully.

We're lucky to have this available, on a fantastic looking DVD (R2 Japan), with English subtitles, and I can't recommend searching it out highly enough.

EDIT: it is now available from the excellent DVD company in the UK Masters of Cinema and I can't praise that release enough.

Brilliant, indulgent, pretentious...but never boring.

[MOscarbradley · 6/10 · 30 July 2021]

An underground art-house hit that is said to have influenced Stanley Kubrick when he came to make "A Clockwork Orange", "Funeral Parade of Roses" has built up a considerable reputation over the years and since it deals with the lives of a group of trans bar-workers in Japan, has also become something of a gay classic. It's mostly plotless, more a series of fragments built around the character of Eddie who works as a hostess and is played by Peter who was also in Kurosawa's "Ran" and it's filmed by director Toshio Matsumoto as a kind of homage to black and white gangster flics filtered through the gaze of someone like Godard and it's as much about the process of making a movie as anything else. It's certainly one of a kind and very much an acquired taste. Brilliant, indlugent, pretentious; it's all of these but at least it's never boring.

Japanese New Wave's diamond

[makotoshintaro · 10/10 · 28 September 2017]

Set in late 60's Tokyo, Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses is slightly based on Oedipus Rex diving deep into Tokyo's underground gay culture. Passionate and raw, it is a wonderful, harmonized mixture of documentary elements and avant-garde cinema. The movie follows Eddie, a gay boy whom I could not stop comparing to Edie Sedgwick for obvious reasons, portrayed by Shinnosuke Ikehata (commonly known as Peter), focusing on Eddie's past, fame and rivalry with the bar's Mama. The movie's title is a play on words: roses, bara (薔薇) in Japanese, is a symbol of homosexuality and also a shortened version of barazoku (薔薇族 ), the name of Japan's first modern gay men's magazine. One of Japanese New Wave's diamonds, Funeral Parade of Roses was a major influence on Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

Put on your rose-tinted glasses for this one

[fagurado · 6/10 · 25 July 2021]

This movie works under a certain context, and that is the context of Japanese gay cinema from the 60s. I seriously don't understand how people can give this film a 10/10 rating, putting it next to other films that are objectively better, and that work well across different audience groups. This film is a niche product. It's like watching a shoe-making youtube video and giving it a 10/10 rating because you are a shoe-maker.

This film is a beautiful film, it has funny moments and interesting parts, but overall I think it deserves 6 or 7 stars. I am curious, did many people just watched it because "it was one of Kubrick's favorite films" or something like that?

Well, I liked it, but I didn't LOVE it. Here's my list of good and bad things:

• Good: It's humorous, yet dramatic, and I like movies that have both. Characters are likable. It gets a bit weird sometimes, with the director deciding for example to break the fourth wall here and there, sitting the actors in front of the camera and asking them questions about their roles.

• Bad: It gets too self-referential at some points, and too experimental. I wish they had spent more time talking about the gay scene in Japan, and possibly their conflict with society. How about those riots? That could have been a good metaphor for the gay community, rioting against the society that they deem unjust or intolerant.

Overall, I liked it because it put me in a different social and historical context, that of Japan during the 60s. But I don't see myself rewatching it any time soon.

For the canon of important cinema

[markwood272 · 10/10 · 19 May 2018]

A few random ideas after multiple viewings: 1. The movie belongs in any canon or compilation of important cinema. 2. I found the movie very involving, even though it was done nearly a half century ago, halfway around the world, and concerns the lives of people I know little about - male transvestites, or using the Japanese term from the film, "gay boys". 3. Maybe the mind behind this project, Toshio Matsumoto, decided to try everything. And that he does. You can pick your own resonances and allusions and whatever. Here's what comes to mind for me: documentary/interview/wall-breaking (Vilgot Sjoman's "I am Curious (Yellow)" (1967), also Pasolini's "Comizi d'amore" (1964)); political diatribe (e.g., Godard's "Le Week-End" (1967)); poetic, arresting cinematography (Antonioni, such as "L'Eclisse" (1962)), absurd, comedic digressions and intrusions (cf. William Castle's "Mr. Sardonicus" (1961)), undercranking ("A Hard Days' Night" (1964) or "Tom Jones" (1963)); pure experimental/avant garde (cf. the films of Maya Deren or Dimitri Kirsanoff or Luis Bunuel). Anticipations include the cinema of Guy Madden ("Brand upon the Brain" (2006) or Hirokazu Kore'eda ("After Life" (1998)) 4. Shakespeare inserted the silly scene with the porter in Macbeth for comic relief in the midst of a clearly tragic story. I had never seen a film before this one that so effectively manages to mix serious with sad, realism with fantasy, and any of the other antithetical pairings whose boundaries more conventional movies treat far more scrupulously. "Funeral Parade of Roses" summons tears and laughter and just about everything else indifferently. The same indifference extends to the presentation of plot elements, when scenes are repeated. It works. 5. The music seems to have been provided in large part by a 50's-60's era home electric organ, i.e., one instrument. Sometimes a single note is all that is needed. 6. Editing is not strictly logical, but always plausible. Some of the transitions between scenes seemed to me to have been perfect. Why or how I cannot explain. 7. The people in the movie are amazing. I never doubted a single frame of this movie. This was the first film for the lead performer, an actor known as "Peter" or "Pita". In the role of Eddie he resembles Ida Lupino. His femininity was credible throughout, but just as credible was his reality as a human being. The entire cast imparted that sense of being really there. 8. This is, yes, an "art movie" ,but more specifically, a modern art movie. Even though the movie is from 1969 it has a stronger sense of "now" than any movie I had seen before. 9. Many favorite scenes, but one is the elevator ascent of Eddie and Guevara with out of frame dialog and music. Unforgettable. 10. To say the movie is "a Japanese version of Oedipus Rex" describes very little, but I suppose such identifiable labeling helped in marketing. 11. Not a mainstream movie but a classic of the "underground", I suppose - but after seeing this film several times, who needs categories? Some movies succeed by engaging our emotions in a story or subject, a character. I was captivated by this film's freedom. Why hasn't the audience become more adventurous, experimental, tentative? Why do people keep watching variations on the same movie over and over again only to complain of the monotony? 12. Simple: more people should see this movie. It reminds the viewer that you can do just about anything with the medium if you're willing to write your own rule book or maybe even do without one. That's the power of that man with a camera. He just needs an audience. Us.

FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES (Toshio Matsumoto, 1969) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 22 March 2006]

An all-night Italian TV program entitled "Fuori Orario" - which translates to "After Hours" - comprised of back-to-back films of all genres, nationalities and vintage, and hosted by an eccentric highbrow critic named Enrico Ghezzi - has for years been the fount of several interesting titles which, if it hadn't been for him, I would never have heard of, let alone watched (though I'd say that about a third of the alarming 500+ still-unwatched films I own on VHS are culled from that program!).

Anyway, FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES is one such example: when I learned it was scheduled to be shown, I made a cursory search via the Internet about the film and, from the little I found, I singled it out as one to record. However, I didn't watch it immediately (mainly because, unfortunately, the tape I used for the recording was some 20 years old and still has a habit of halting playback automatically and subsequently refusing to load!; in fact, a couple of weeks back I lost two early Shohei Imamura films I unwisely taped on a similarly fragile VHS) but, since that time, I've come across a few more references to Matsumoto's film - most recently its being announced as a forthcoming Region 2 DVD release from the impressive "Masters Of Cinema" label - which have only intrigued me even more. Then, yesterday, as I was listening to Tony Rayns' Audio Commentary for Hiroshi Teshigahara's unusual debut PITFALL (1962) - incidentally a Eureka/MoC edition - he mentioned the film once again (and, perhaps unwittingly, proceeded to give away the devastating plot twist at the film's conclusion!) in the context of its similarly unconventional nature. So, this time, I decided not only to watch FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES at long last - whatever the condition of the tape which, fortuitously, turned out to be not too bad - but, being in something of an art-house/Asian cinema vein, I made a whole list of (mostly just as obscure) titles to follow...

Now, after this long-winded introduction, let's get down to the business at hand: a potentially off-putting subject matter (the trials and tribulations of a community of transvestites) is transformed by the writer-director's aggressively experimental style, drawing on the contemporary free-form technique of European films rather than the cinematic conventions which are traditionally Japanese. In fact, the narrative (if it can even be called that, in view of its many flashbacks, flash-forwards and repeated actions) is frequently interrupted by having the cast sit down for interviews being filmed by a TV crew; interestingly, Ingmar Bergman's contemporaneous THE PASSION OF ANNA (1969) used a similarly unique device to "explain" his characters' motivations, as it were. Despite its generally serious tone, seemingly a requisite for an art-house film, FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES is not devoid of humor or, at the very least, a distinct sense of the absurd: the catfight scenes between the "women" are shot in accelerated motion - a technique allegedly borrowed from this film by Stanley Kubrick for A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)!; the scene of a trio of transvestites taking a leak in a men's lavatory (much to the consternation of those present); the linking image of a line-up of naked men with one of them having a rose firmly planted between his butt-cheeks; a revolutionary hippie named Guebara having a sneezing fit in extreme close-up; and the moment during one of the pauses for interviews when a crew member slinks past the camera filming the actor playing the man pretending to be a woman (are you confused yet?) holding a dead rat by the tail! With regards to Peter, the lead actor (who, amazingly, later turned up as The Fool in RAN [1985], Kurosawa's masterful adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear"), I have to say that he makes for a very convincing female impersonator - to the point where, if it weren't for his clearly masculine voice, one forgets that he's actually watching a man in drag! The love scenes (which, thankfully, aren't very explicit) are sensitively handled and, in general, the film doesn't sentimentalize the gay community - nor does it criticize the drug scene which seems to be as much a part of their lifestyle as anything else. As I said earlier, I knew of the film's reversal of Greek tragedy at the climax from Tony Rayns' commentary for PITFALL but, given its complex structure, I was still blown away by the revelation which, in turn, leads to an extremely violent ending that is not easily forgotten. By the way, I found the brownish hue of the black-and-white cinematography to be an interesting touch: I don't know if this was done intentionally, or whether it was just a feature of the print I happened to watch - but, at this juncture, I think I'd be somewhat disappointed if this unique "dirty" look were missing from the film once the upcoming DVD is released (perhaps anyone who might own the Japanese disc could chime in about this?)...

FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES was, by all accounts, an remarkable debut feature for Toshio Matsumoto; he followed it with only 3 more films but, from the little I've read about them, they sound interesting too and well worth seeking out (so far they have only been available as part of a Japanese Limited Edition Box Set, though not all the films feature English subtitles!).

Ahead of its time, du!?

[XxEthanHuntxX · 5/10 · 15 February 2021]

The star of the film isn't the boring story, but the cinematography and editing. Visually dazzling and stuffed with sentimental gratifications throughout. Violence is made cartoonish using sped-up cameras, non-sequitur images are cut into the movie at jarring moments, and the characters are suddenly interviewed about their role in the film. Didn't click with me thus the story didn't work, or maybe Im not worthy of seeing it yet.

Buñuel on the steroids

[p_radulescu · 13 August 2014]

I didn't know anything about this movie when a friend of mine recommended it in the most enthusiastic way. The guy is a a very young movie buff, with a keen interest in quality movies (experimental, avant-garde, new wave, independent, iconoclast, unorthodox, stuff like that). I share his interests (despite my old age), and any discussion we have is real brainstorming. Two days ago he told me about planning to organize kind of jam-session with friends of his age to watch a battery of movies (I declined the invitation: No Country for Old Men). "Funeral Procession of Roses" was mentioned in this context.

Back home I found references about the movie on the web, then a copy of the film on you Tube, with Spanish subtitles. I stayed long in night to watch the movie. Really a great cinematic experience. As I said, I didn't know anything about it, nor about director Toshio Matsumoto. A movie from 1969, belonging to the "Nuberu Bagu", the Japanese New Wave, recalling all I knew about that period in the history of Nippon cinema, first of all bringing back to my memory the four or five movies by Oshima that I had the chance to watch.

You say "Nuberu Bagu", you say Buñuel on the steroids; and the film of Matsumoto is no exception: the ending scene of "Funeral Procession of Roses" is a direct reference to the beginning of "Un Chien Andalou": tribute paid to the famous scene from Buñuel, also creative re-enactment, also shifting the sense of it toward new territory, toward Buñuel encountering Aeschylus and Sophocles on a street in Tokyo among busy passers-by.

It's not a movie for the sissies, this "Funeral Procession of Roses". It acts on multiple strata, and each strata is challenging. A movie solidly placed in the underground culture, exploring the gay universe - a night club of sorts with two drag queens in bitter conflict, the club owner trying to keep the balance between them. All this approached with a raw Neorealist eye, à la Fellini, à la Juan Antonio Bardem. Over the plot comes a documentary, every now and then the action is stopped and one or other of the actors is interviewed: a movie about trans genders, played by trans genders, how do they view their sexual condition, how do they relate with the movie they play in. Is it a documentary about a gay movie on the making? Is it just a documentary about the LGBT condition, using feature sequences to emphasize some points? Actually everything in the movie is left in an indeterminate state, and this is on purpose. Is it a feature or a documentary? Are the actors playing actors, a movie within a movie? Are those guys trans genders, or girls impersonating trans genders, or what? Is the paradigm of Oedipus (re-enacted in the movie in a quirky way) just what we know it is? Is this a supremely iconoclastic interpretation of Augusto Monterosso's "La cucaracha soñadora" - moved in a Tokyo gay bar of the sixties? ("There was a cockroach named Gregor Samsa who was dreaming he was a cockroach named Franz Kafka who was dreaming he was an author writing some story about a clerk named Gregor Samsa who was dreaming he was a cockroach"). Gosh, no!

And I think this is the ultimate meaning of the Funeral Procession of Roses: it speaks us about the frailty of our certitudes: be it reality versus illusion of reality, be it gender strict determination, be it our ultimate identity. "Mis circunstancias son como las suyas. Ésa es una de las razones"... Yep, not for the sissies.

Daring and unique

[gbill-74877 · 8/10 · 17 August 2019]

A pretty unique film, one which represents transvestite characters in an adaptation of a classical Greek story, executed in a new wave film style. It's a lot, and there were times while watching it that I thought director Toshio Matsumoto was trying to do just a little too much. If you're wondering a bit during silly scenes like the joint being passed around, or what the point of all those butts are, one sporting a protruding rose, well, I would just say 'bare' with it, because it pulls together well over the back half. The lead character, Eddie (short for Oedipus, get it?), is striking, and frankly I thought Peter was a big part of what made the film successful.

The film felt a little close to making this culture a part of a carnival, e.g. with fight scenes given to us in fast motion and with circus music, and when the interviewer asks questions of characters/actors in condescending ways. There are gay sex scenes which seems quite daring for the period, though Matsumoto seems to want to reassure us that nothing's actually happening by suddenly showing the film crew around the actors, and how the whole thing is just being simulated. I worried a little bit that the culture was just being used for shock value along with the new wave style, and compounded by the perversion of the original story.

However, overall I think we see a sympathetic humanization here, something that's pretty amazing for 1969. The characters suffer the pangs of love and jealousy as anyone else would, and also hardships growing up that are all their own. Masks and mirrors play a big role in the film, but what I loved was that while these characters are wearing masks maybe to conceal their inner demons and the pain in their lives, they're not wearing them or pretending to be something they're not by dressing as women. Ironically, we see that they are being true to themselves, and in that sense, wearing less of a mask by doing so. The best moments for me were in the candid, honest replies to the interview questions, and I wish there would have been more of this. The imagery at the end is also especially powerful, and seems to amplify the isolation of this poor young man from the society around him, who simply gape in astonishment.

Odd, interesting Japanese avant-garde film

[jamesrupert2014 · 7/10 · 20 May 2018]

I am not a fan of avent-garde films, which I find are often pretentious and silly, but I enjoyed "Funeral Parade of Roses", primarily because I found the main character "Eddie" (played by Shinnosuke Ikehata aka "Peter") fascinating. The film is a non-linear composite of drama and documentary like vérité punctuated by abstract inclusions (jump cuts to stills, substitution splices, etc), some of which are more effective than others. Supposedly, Kubrick drew inspiration for "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) from this film and there are certainly some similarities (at one point Eddie looks straight at the camera through up cast eyes in a scene that reminded me of the iconic opening shot of "Alex" in Kubrick's film). Lacking much of a plot, "Funeral Parade of Roses" primarily peers into Tokyo's gay scene and follows Eddie, a transvestite 'bar girl' as he moves amoungst his friends (including pretentious auteur 'Guevara') in hopes of luring boss Gonda (Yoshio Tsuchiya) from rival, and bar 'Madame', Leda (Osamu Ogasawara), perhaps becoming 'Madame' himself. The black-and white cinematography is lovely, the characters intriguing and photogenic and the direction, for the most part, excellent (the interminable toking scene not withstanding). While the film is nonlinear, there is a traditional 'climatic' sequence at the end that is well worth waiting for and explains many of the references to the film being an Oedipal myth. Not to everybody's tastes but well worth trying out.

Japan tackles some big issues back in 1969..... spoilers

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 15 October 2018]

I had such high hopes for this one. WARNING... HUGE SPOILERS ahead. Extra credit to Toshio Matsumoto for tackling SO many controversial issues in one little film. Homosexual sex, inter-racial love and sex, incest, gay bars. Suicide, self maiming. Orgies. Pot smoking and drug trafficking. wow. and this was all still in 1969, in Japan. For most of the film, it's pretty well done, although its more artsy for art's sake than it needs to be. A lot of time spent on strobe light, slow-motion, words of wisdom displayed on the screen in between scenes. Sadly, it gets so very violent at the very end. Pretty much everyone offs or maims themself right at the end. So many films ended badly for the gay characters during the 1960s, 1970s I was hoping that this one would allow at least one of the main characters to go on to a better life. Funeral Parade of Roses, or Bara no sôretsu in japanese, which appears to translate to something like Roses without Solace (?). Good story. extra credit to Matsumoto and the actors for tackling so many issues back when. Matsumoto had been making mostly docs and shorts for ten years before he came out with "Funeral". It's a good watch, if you have the stomach for all the violence at the end. Thanks to Turner Classic for showing this one.

A Fever Dream

[Neon_Gold · 7/10 · 30 December 2021]

This movie was like experiencing the director's fever dream or something. It was so confusing but it felt like the film maker knew exactly what was going on. It's like this is a cluster of every type of movie possible. There is so much going on.

The story is a little bit where the movie falters. It takes a back seat to the visuals. Which are gorgeous, this whole movie looks fantastic.

This subject for 1968 is insane to me. I can't believe it was made. I think for the most part it was pretty respectful too. It treat all its characters as real people as well as the interviews.

Distance and Representation

[prostrateconstantly · 2/10 · 21 July 2021]

This film focusing heavily on an underground lifestyle of drug use and debauchery when also trying to provide representation of an under-represented and easily misunderstood group enforces negative stereotypes through establishing a distancing effect in the majority of the audience.

The protagonist of the film being subject to unimaginable trauma and serving as a cipher in an Oedipus story exacerbates this distance and creates troubling parallels between trauma and gender non-conformity. This functions as a poor choice when considering any potential audience for this movie:

1) Audiences unfamiliar with this sort of trauma now can relegate their thoughts on this sort of gender orientation as being due to trauma which they cannot relate to and contributes to the protagonist manifesting as an unfamiliar "other", which is something the film should be moving away from if it is meant to provide an empathetic window into a group outside mainstream society.

2) Audiences that have experienced any sort of similar trauma in the past will be propagated negative thought complexes of futility through the film's commitment to its nihilistic perspective.

The "on-the-street" interviews, which are a fantastic idea in concept as they provide a direct view into real gender non-conforming individuals, are incredibly non-probing and insubstantial. This could act as an essential document of positive representation if it was given sufficient attention and letting the subjects express their feelings about their sexual choices, mainstream society's view of them, and what they feel positive representation would be. Instead we are left with "why are you gay"-tier sketches that, in a skeptical audience, could easily read as the central subjects being vacuous rather than the filmmakers.

The film's constant self-references are another contribution to distance and read as the film being insecure in its own content. There is value in postmodern works questioning the machinations of media and communication. However, for these techniques to be utilized so heavily in a film that should ideally establish an understanding towards a marginalized group, these effects work counter to these goals. In particular the sequences focusing on the arthouse filmmakers and associates, involving drug use and sexual debauchery, can be read either as an aggrandization of this behavior as a way towards liberation (which I view as a very destructive perspective) or a critique. As a critique it fails due to failing to provide a nuanced perspective on the central failings of the group or suggest any potentials for improvement (compare the methods utilized in Godard's La Chinoise as an example in which this critique could work positively). Surprisingly, the most substantial perspective offered in the film is provided in an incredibly short sequence involving a violent revolutionary, which provides a very convincing, although admittedly basic, justification for violent political acts when justified by logical context. However, this aspect of the film is given minimal focus, and it is a shame the same thoughtfulness could not be afforded the film's main focus.

I do not want to create the impression that every instance of positive representation needs to explicitly subvert stereotypes or pander to accepted norms of mainstream behavior, as I think the only base criteria for positive representation is encouraging a fundamental empathy. However, I think my central problem with this film is that, through the distancing effects outlined in this review, it becomes more akin to a freak show than an opportunity for understanding. A freak show is not an example of positive representation as it upholds peoples preconceptions that these marginalized groups exist outside of relatability. There was an opportunity for a landmark of queer cinema in this film, but it failed due to insecurity in its own subject matter.

A must see movie

[ebiros2 · 3 January 2012]

This is a movie that was made in the late '60s, early '70s period of Japan when Japan influenced by the Hippie culture was experimenting with their own brand of Avant Garde culture that was sometimes called "Angura". This is shortened Japanese pronunciation for "Underground". As the word suggests, these were experimental non-mainstream production that explored much about free sex, and anti establishment view of the world.

Gay culture was almost never picked up in Japanese movie up to this point, and it was first public exposure to the literally underground culture of the society at that time. This movie was also the debut for Pita or Shinnosuke Ikehata as Eddie. He has become somewhat of an icon for gay culture in Japan, but this movie was actually the first time he appeared as gay in public, and prior to that, he was only known as a beautiful boy dancer. His father was a natori of Japanese dance school, and he is a trained dancer himself.

Producers of this movie auditioned over 100 candidates, but couldn't find the right talent. Novel writer Tsutomu Minakami told the producers about "this boy" who was a go go dancer at a club in Roppongi. When the producers went to the club, and met the then 16 year old Ikehata, they knew they had the right person. Ikehata had a nick name Pita from Peter Pan, as he was so beautiful, and it was difficult to tell if he was a boy or a girl.

Story is bit convoluted, Eddie, who is the top host at the club Junne has intimate relation with the club's owner Gonda (Yoshio Tsuchiya). When the madam of the club Leda discovers this, he goes into a jealous frenzy, and tries to hurt Eddie. Eddie gets an idea to kill Leda, but that also brought back his suppressed memory of killing his own mother. Leda makes an attempt on Eddie's beauty by trying to cut his face, but fails. Gonda dumps Leda, and Leda commits suicide. But Gonda finds out the real truth about the relation between himself and Eddie.

The production of this movie is above average for avant garde movies made during this period. There's humor, talent, interesting point of view, and a real story. This is one of must see movies to come out of Japan.

Unhealthy Disturbing

[Breumaster · 4/10 · 6 February 2020]

I can live with many things. That movie had interesting moments and insights to the Japanese gay scene in the 60s. I liked many aspects of the movie, but the exzessive and unnecessary violence at the end ruined the whole thing at the end. Just my opinion. They could have let out the end and the movie would have been more interesting. I know: Art! - But no! Period