Author Yukio Mishima once said that being a gay man in Japan was no big deal - if you knew how to play the game. You could sleep with all the boys you wanted, as long as you also got married.In 1969, writer/director Toshio Matsumoto broke that tradition with the release of Funeral Procession of Roses . This is a look not just at late '60s Japanese gay life but at the guys who couldn't fake it. The story revolves around the rivalry between a young upstart drag hostess, Eddie, and a senior barmaid, Madame, over who will win the heart of a bar owner and become the star of his club. Taking a cue from Cocteau, who filmed a surreal version of Orpheus , Matsumoto loosely based Funeral Procession of Roses on Oedipus Rex . He also dips liberally into techniques from French new wave directors like Truffaut and Godard. His story unfolds in an elliptical, nonlinear way, sometimes halting to interview an actor in the movie.The film glimpses a Japan outsiders rarely see. Like the US, Japanese society in the late 1960s reveled in drugs, free sexual play, and protests. For all its period strangeness and art house tics, there's a familiarity to the characters' lives and conflicts. Matsumoto finds universal conflicts in a story about a very specific culture.
- Richard Kadrey
Funeral Procession of Roses: US$25. Video Search of Miami: +1 (305) 279 9773.
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