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“Funeral Parade of Roses” has to be one of the most successful avant-garde and experimental cinema masterpieces the world has ever seen. And no, I am not even exaggerating. This irreverent psychosexual reinterpretation of the myth of Oedipus Rex by director Toshio Matsumoto – dense with visual exploration, meta-cinematography, and rebellion – is one of the cornerstones of the Japanese New Wave of the 1960s. Through a temporally deconstructed narrative as chaotic as it is ingenious, Matsumoto encapsulates and crystallizes the generational drama of Japanese youth.

Set in Tokyo at the peak of its socio-political turmoil, the work follows the ups and downs of Eddie, a young transgender woman grappling with her identity. The protagonist works at Genet, a gay bar in Tokyo managed by the gangster Gonda, whom she is in love with. Leda (Osamu Ogasawara) is the “Madame” and drag queen's leader, as well as being Gonda's (Yoshio Tsuchiya) partner.

“I am the wound and the blade,

both the torturer and he who is flayed.”

In an interview about his most important work, “Funeral Parade of Roses,” Japanese director Toshio Matsumoto explains how his greatest inspiration was the cultural and social underground of Japanese society. While the concept of “otherness” certainly played a decisive part in many works of art, underground movements all over the world suddenly had found their time to become more and more influential in the public consciousness. Breaking the last remnants of the chains of conformity from the 1950s, feminists, gays and hippies – to name just a few – played their part in defining a decade marked by social and cultural progress for many.

“Funeral Parade of Roses” is streaming on Mubi

However, in the case for “Funeral Parade of Roses”, Matsumoto mentions his fascination with the Japanese gay community, especially drag queens, as one of the main aspects of the projects.

Fifty years on, Toshio Matsumoto’s monochrome masterpiece still seems like a chilling message from the future

Toshio Matsumoto’s 1969 film is a fusillade of haunted images and traumatised glimpses, splattered across a realist melodrama of the Tokyo underground club scene, played out in a fiercely beautiful monochrome. (It is reissued as part of the BFI’s Japan 2020 season which has now been forced to migrate to streaming until cinemas reopen.)

Eddie, played by the then-unknown performer Pîtâ, is a transgender bar hostess and rising star of a place named the Genet – Matsumoto leaves it up to us to ponder the associations. Eddie is having a passionate affair with the club’s owner, Gonda (played by Kurosawa regular Yoshio Tsuchiya), and has ignited the passionate rage and jealousy of Gonda’s other lover and employee, the transgender hostess, Leda (Osamu Ogasawara). As their love triangle proceeds to its operatic conclusion,...

“I am the wound and the blade,

both the torturer and he who is flayed.”

In an interview about his most important work, “Funeral Parade of Roses,” Japanese director Toshio Matsumoto explains how his greatest inspiration was the cultural and social underground of Japanese society. While the concept of “otherness” certainly played a decisive part in many works of art, underground movements all over the world suddenly had found their time to become more and more influential in the public consciousness. Breaking the last remnants of the chains of conformity from the 1950s, feminists, gays and hippies – to name just a few – played their part in defining a decade marked by social and cultural progress for many.

However, in the case for “Funeral Parade of Roses”, Matsumoto mentions his fascination with the Japanese gay community, especially drag queens, as one of the main aspects of the projects. Especially in a country as authoritarian as Japan,...

Long unavailable in the U.S., Toshio Matsumoto’s subversive masterpiece “Funeral Parade of Roses” is now in limited release with a shiny new 4k restoration from Cinelicious Pics and The Cinefamily, crafted from the original 35mm camera negative and sound elements of the feature.

The film follows transgender actor Peter, who turns in an eye-opening performance as hot young thing Eddie, hostess at Bar Gene who enters into a violent love-triangle with reigning drag queen Leda (Osamu Ogasawara) and Gonda (played by Kurosawa regular Yoshio Tsuchiya).

Read More: ‘Funeral Parade of Roses’ Review: 50 Years Later, This Transgressive Japanese Drama Is Still a Party and a Procession

As our Michael Nordine wrote in his review, the movie as “both a party and a procession,” adding that the “subversive drama starts like a dream, a black-and-white vision of bodies entwined in momentary escape, before reality intervenes: Eddie (Peter, also known as...

When thinking of a film to return to this series of articles, I racked my brain constantly. So many films came to mind, favorites of mine that I would geek out like crazy if Criterion put out in a supplements laden edition. But the harder I thought about it, I wanted to find a favorite film of mine that pushes the audience. Not only now when people watch it but back when it was first crafted and came out in theaters. My brain went ‘duh’ and I had my pick right from the get go. That film is Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of Roses (Bara no sôretsu) from 1969.

A film that delves into sexual identity, which I think is more relevant now than ever. A forgotten film, sadly, that gets passed over when people talk about the avant garde films that influenced them. Why has this film been passed...