Drama

Funeral Parade of Roses

薔薇の葬列

Directed by: Toshio Matsumoto
1969 / 105 minutes / Unclassified 18+ (restricted to persons 18 years and over)

“What a mix of cruelty and laughter it is!”

By branching out of his documentary career, experimental director Toshio Matsumoto produced his most revered work—the intoxicating and surreal debut feature that is Funeral Parade of Roses. A subversive take on the Greek tragedy Oedipus, the film follows Eddie (played by queer icon Shinnosuke Ikehata aka Peter, who later won critical acclaim in Akira Kurosawa’s Ran), a notorious hostess and rising star of a queer nightclub in Tokyo’s underground scene. Eddie is passionately enveloped in destructive intimacy and a violently jealous love triangle, and as a result is confronted with traumatic childhood memories. This all comes to a head with the film’s dizzying climax—fueled by a whirlwind of drugs, sex, music and undeniably fabulous glamour.

Matsumoto splices narrative with documentary-style interviews alongside arthouse, avant-garde and Brechtian performance devices, all the while confronting the then taboo subjects of gender and sexuality head on. Catch a rare glimpse into the queer community of 1960s Japan through this visual and sonic cacophony of Japanese New Wave cinema.
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TALK EVENT
Queer & Transgender Visibility in Cinema
20 February 2021
16:00-16:40
Art Gallery of NSW

Join us for a post-film discussion with special guests in a talk focused around queer identity and non-conformative gender representation in cinema. This discussion will also delve into how these topics are reflected in Funeral Parade of Roses and why this film is still relevant today.

SPEAKERS
Maija Howe (Moderator)
Bhenji Ra
Jen Atherton
Charlotte Mars