Funeral Parade of Roses

Bara no sôretsu

Japan, 1969

Avant-Garde, Cult, LGBT+

Synopsis

A feverish collision of avant-garde aesthetics and grind-house shocks (not to mention a direct influence on Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange), Funeral Parade of Roses takes us on an electrifying journey into the nether-regions of the late-’60s Tokyo underworld.

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Funeral Parade of Roses Directed by Toshio Matsumoto

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Awards & Festivals

International Film Festival Rotterdam

2018

BFI London Film Festival

2017

!f Istanbul International Independent Film Festival

2016

IndieLisboa International Independent Film Festival

2018

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Cast & Crew

Articles from the Notebook

Movie Poster of the Week: “The Human Bullet” and the Posters of the Art Theater Guild

A selection of late 60s graphic masterpieces created for the Art Theater Guild in Japan.

Movie Poster of the Week: “Band of Ninja”

I recently came across a page on the website of the Cinématheque Française devoted to their eye-popping collection of Japanese posters,…

Critics reviews

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The Paris Review

Much of the movie leaves us in Eddie’s head as she relives a cluster of agonizing recollections from childhood: her mother laughing at her when Eddie asks about her father; Eddie finding her mother entangled with a lover on the floor; the first time her mother caught Eddie putting on lipstick. That these three memories focus on Eddie’s mother should alert you to the Oedipal themes that thunder throughout this heated and beautiful spectacle.

Caitlin Love

June 16, 2017

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Masumoto understands the sensual pleasures of putting on and taking off a mask… Once nearly impossible to see, Funeral Parade of Roses is a dizzying pop experimental epic that bounds off the screen and screams to be heard.

Dana Reinoos

June 14, 2017

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Film Comment

A heady affair, especially when seen in our aesthetically and politically conservative times. It imparts the thrill of witnessing the hedonism and lawlessness—both sexual and artistic—of a bygone culture. You also feel an almost tragic surge of melancholia watching it: where and when, you wonder, will cinema ever get quite this wild again?

Jonathan Romney

June 09, 2017

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What are people saying?

El Biffo's rating of the film Funeral Parade of Roses
El Biffo

1960's Japanese trippiness centering on a group of drag queens smoking grass. Some great images. Supposedly influential, I suppose every subsequent avant-garde stoner drag queen film owes a nod to this. Must-see for those who love weird 60's Japanese films, like "Go, Go Second-time Virgin". Created for a cult audience, and it deserves the cult status it achieved.
February 04, 2019 13:51
- 15
- 0
msmichel's rating of the film Funeral Parade of Roses
msmichel

Matsumoto's film is an unsung LGBT classic mixing aspects of experimental film with counter culture, documentary and drag culture. Even with its over the top grand guignol finish (with a self aware irreverence) this impresses. Recently rediscovered and making the re-release rounds this year. Fascinating, sexy and beautiful.
February 09, 2019 06:09
- 3
- 0
EdieEmm's rating of the film Funeral Parade of Roses
EdieEmm

More linear/narrative than I was expecting... A gorgeous (4K restoration on the big screen!), playful, feverishly intertextual, queer 60s genre mash-up, that's part clever documentary & part 3-wall avant-garde theatre. Recursion, inversion, distortion, disruption, as the great inescapable levellers; as our fate! We're *all* Oedipus/Electra; all (ahem)'wounds' & 'blades'. Subversive, confrontational, iconoclastic fun.
January 24, 2019 18:45
- 2
- 0
Jason's rating of the film Funeral Parade of Roses
Jason

FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES is almost like an eastern variation on the films that made Dušan Makavejev famous during the same period. It similarly has the quality of a portmanteau: a trifecta of approaches to countercultural cinema, weaved rather than bundled. Here we have: 1) a quasi-documentary about the performance of queer identity; 2) paradigm smashing drop-out freak-out; 3) cryptomythic mind-fuck. Yes, please!
February 09, 2019 06:10
- 3
- 1
Scorpio Velvet's rating of the film Funeral Parade of Roses
Scorpio Velvet

My god, what an unusual film I've watched. Where to begin? The film has to do with homosexuality and other things in the 1960's Japan I know, but contains a good but interesting use of from avant-garde to documented-style footage all leading up to one of the most shocking endings I've ever seen in any film like this before. This would be a fine pair with ether FELLINI SATYRICON or anything by Teryama nevertheless.
February 09, 2019 06:10
- 10
- 0
Max Slobodin's rating of the film Funeral Parade of Roses
Max Slobodin

the personal is always political. [REDACTED] lovemaking as a revolutionary act. the roles we play. masks/mirrors/makeup. *MISSING REEL* when we [REDACTED] ourselves, one is compelled to be lost in the din of our own evil. a sociological schema that [REDACTED] impinge upon cinema (a reality?). the knife that we hide even from our own psyche. *MISSING REEL* lysergic denial. a referendum on our very souls...
February 09, 2019 06:10
- 4
- 0
João Rocha's rating of the film Funeral Parade of Roses
João Rocha

It's really quite amazing just thinking that this was made in the 60's... How someone could made this with such sense of freedom?!?
February 09, 2019 06:09
- 5
- 0
Wee Hunk's rating of the film Funeral Parade of Roses
Wee Hunk

While not quite as good as 'The Man Who Left His Will on Film', which was made the next year, there are many similarities. It definitely got bogged down in some of the sequences and didn't quite know what it wanted to be.
February 01, 2017 22:23
- 0
- 0