Il funerale delle rose

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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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 'climactic' 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.

"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!

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.

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!).