Funeral Parade of Roses

Watched Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) directed by Toshio Matsumoto for Monday's LGBTQ+ film group. I found a great discussion in this episode of The Magic Lantern podcast.

Mentioned in the podcast: 

-the film's first title card is a quote from Baudelaire;

-Kubrick cited this film as an influence on Clockwork Orange;

-Peter, the actor who plays Eddie, played the role of the Fool in Kurosawa's Ran;

-roses appear throughout. Bara means rose, but is also an epithet for a gay man that has been reclaimed, and is now a shorthand term for a type of gay manga.

-the eyelashes!

-the interviewees resist collapsing identity into the interviewer's narrow terms. We all wish there were more to the interviews;

-"gay bars have changed"  

-drugs, performance art, protests, riots, art, film-making, all in Shinjuku;

-street scenes, shot from rooftops and street-level, including some performance pieces, and Eddie and friends presenting as women and encountering harassment and fights with girl gangsters;

-a long flashback within a long flashback, the narrative circles back on itself a couple of times;

-Oedipus inverted;

-"All definitions of cinema are erased. All the doors are now open."

-gentle caricature of the group of artsy kids;

-Eddie putting on her make-up, such a great scene! but echoes the scene when she put on lipstick and was kissing the mirror, and was attacked by her mother;

-"dangerous deviant" or gay kid as killer is subsumed by the Oedipus plot--or is it?;

-Oedipus's crime was pride. What is Eddie's? Yes, she killed, but is she being punished for being gay?

-Leda's suicide, laying herself out as a bride;

-Gonda discovers the photo and kills himself;

-absurd cut to movie critic: "Sayonara, sayonara, sayonara!"

-it's a full-body film!