Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)
AKA: Bara No Sôretsu
Directed by: Toshio Matsumoto
Starring: Peter (Eddie), Osamu Ogasawara (Leda), Yoshio Tsuchiya (Gonda)
Country: Japan, Asian Cinema
Language: Japanese (English Subtitles)
Runtime: 01:45:14
Genres: Gay-CrossDressing, Drugs, Incest
Plot – Spoilers:
In ’60s Japan, Gonda the owner of a gay bar runs a parallel drug business there. He is in a relationship with a transvestite Leda who manages the place for him. But with Leda losing her youth and her geisha-sensibilities ageing, Gonda shifts his attention to the young and pop-cultured Eddie, another transvestite working at the bar.
Funeral Parade of Roses follows a non-linear narrative with throwbacks to Eddie’s childhood without a father who left early and a mother who found his masculinity amusing. It all pieces together in the end while also capturing and satirizing the buzz of the underground drug, film and gay scene of ’60s-’70s Japan.
“For the introduction of a socialist economy is more than a ‘decree’! It requires a moral understanding, an ethical conviction, a religious profession of faith! For in its innermost essence, it is a turning away from the idolatry of previous millennia, the overcoming of a monetary system already attacked by MOSES AND CHRIST, which could be maintained to the present day only by keeping people stupid and terrorizing them, and by a mendacious sanctimoniousness. To bring about this powerful revolution is our mission; to prevent it, on the other hand, is the intention and perhaps already the task assigned to Schacht.”
— Adolf Hitler, in Otto Wagener’s Memoirs of a Confidant, p. 263
probably the best tranny movie
One of my all time favorite movies and a really unique and unfiltered look at Japan during a really turbulent time. Still holds up so well today and it’s portrayal of trans women and cross dressers is lightyears ahead of anything else of it’s era. Not quite sure it’s at home on a site for fucked up movies, but hey whatever gets people watching!
astounding – aspects of french new wave but equally unique
a big thank you for this one
Thank you for making this available.