The plot of Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Rex is as follows: Oedipus is born in Thebes. He is the sole son of Thebian royalty and was foretold a cruel fate upon his birth. According to an oracle, he was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. To avoid this, his father orders for Oedipus to be maimed and left for dead in a forest. He survives and is adopted by another royal family in Corinth. Unfortunately, he grows to mistake them for his ill-fated birth parents. In order to avoid this, Oedipus decides to leave his home for good.
In his adulthood, he conquers a city, kills the king, takes the queen as his bride, and they have four children together. Eventually, the queen discovers that Oedipus is indeed her son, and consequently hangs herself. Upon seeing this gory sight, Oedipus gouges his eyes out and retreats into exile.
That’s pretty much the long and short of it.
Now, update the setting to 1960s Tokyo, change the ill-fated king Oedipus to a coquettish trans woman named Eddie, make the disputed territory a gay bar named Bar Genet, add some psychedelic rock and experimental visuals. Now you have Funeral Parade of Roses (薔薇の葬列; bara no sourestu), directed by Matsumoto Toshio and originally released in 1969.
A self-described parody of Oedipus Rex starring Ikehata Shinnosuke, better known as Peter (Zatoichi at the Fire Festival, Ran) as the lead role, it utilizes dark comedy, distorted visuals, and a non-linear timeline to tell this highly stylized story. The movie served as inspiration during the production of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, which was released two years later.
Here are five more things to know about Funeral Parade of Roses.
“Gay boy” was an umbrella term.
As previously mentioned, Funeral Parade of Roses is an avant-garde parody of Oedipus Rex, featuring “seven real-life ‘gay boys’”–rather than cross-dressing cisgender men. This is significant, as the story itself is a source of tragicomedy, rather than the cast members’ marginalized identities.
Notably, the term “gay boy” is still very much a drawing point when marketing the movie, as it’s also printed on the 2017 Blu-Ray booklet. However, it seems to be there from a more historical perspective. Seeing as how the respective cast members/interviewees ranged in gender presentation and sexual orientation, “gay boy” was most likely an umbrella term for gay men, trans women and people assigned male at birth. As of 2020 however, more accurate terms such as “gay/bi/pan man”, “trans woman”, “non-binary person”, etc. would obviously be more appropriate.
Drama and absurdity go hand-in-hand.
One of the more well-known scenes from the movie takes place between Eddie, who is the #1 at Bar Genet, and her rival, Leda, who is the madame of the same bar. What originally starts off as a melodramatic confrontation over Mr. Gonda’s heart and also power over the bar transforms into a parody of a Western-style showdown, complete with a ten-gallon hat and toy guns.
This is followed up by a still shot of them cursing at each other via comic bubbles, deliberately chosen by the director to show how petty their argument was. Finally, it culminates in an all-out brawl. The scenes are sped up and played out “Keystone Cops” style — until Eddie gets seriously hurt, bringing the audience back down to the true gravity of the situation. This shows how Matsumoto is able to strike a balance between the gravity, frailty, and absurdity of human interaction.
Tradition vs. modernity is a major theme.
This is most evident between the aforementioned duo. Leda is “silk hiding steel”—that is, a woman of ladylike tradition who dons a kimono and wig wherever she goes. Her home also fits the traditional aesthetic which includes kokeshi dolls and artificial roses—noting her wish to never fade away and to always remain in everyone’s hearts, especially that of Mr. Gonda’s.
In contrast, Eddie’s femininity is more coquettish and assertive. While we learn much later that some of her behavior comes from a wish to escape her traumatic childhood, most of her actions, especially drug usage, maintaining a rotation of sexual partners and hanging out with hippies, show a shift in social hierarchy and attitudes of decency. The fact that she’s the #1 girl at Bar Genet, and is slowly encroaching on Leda’s status, brings no comfort to the former. On a meta-level, it’s a challenge to Japanese society at large.
There was a visible counterculture movement in 1960s Japan.
Parallel to the folks at Bar Genet, there is another group of characters in Funeral Parade of Roses simply known as the “dropouts”. They are a collective of hippies, artists, and protestors who spend most of their time making experimental films, smoking marijuana (which was easier to obtain in Japan at the time), and ruminating about modern society. Around this time, there were many student protests that took place in Japan, mainly in protest of the 1960 revisions to the Anpo Treaty, which allowed for continued U.S. military presence in Japan, 15 years after the Pacific War had come to an end.
The interviews with the “dropouts” cast add an extra layer to this counterculture theme. They aren’t professional actors, but rather crew members and personal friends of the director Matsumoto. When asked about why they take recreational drugs, the most notable answers range from “a wish to alter reality” to “obliterating my sense of self”.
This is followed up by scenes featuring a stoner circle, a light-hearted punishment game involving stripping, which culminates in a semi-nude dance party accompanied by psychedelic rock. There are no societal markers or barriers that divide them—they are all “flower children”, even if for a brief time.
Guerilla filmmaking was the norm.
Most filmmakers, even those from large studios such as Toei, filmed movies without a permit, due to the large amount of red tape involved. Matsumoto was no different. What made the production more risky was that most of the film was shot on location in Shinjuku, one of Tokyo’s busiest districts. While his perseverance is to be commended, there is another illicit bonus to his guerilla production—the background characters aren’t hired extras, but rather civilians.
This makes the background characters’ reactions rather insightful. Notably, their collective cringe at Zero Jigen’s (a performance art collective) marching ritual near Shinjuku Station shows a real clash between the avant-garde and the mainstream.
Funeral Parade of Roses is currently available on Blu-Ray on Amazon.
Sources
- Matsumoto, Toshio, director. Funeral Parade of Roses. Matsumoto Productions and Nihon Art Theatre Guild, 1969. a)The 2017 Blu-Ray features additional commentary by Chris Desjardins a.k.a Chris D, the author of Gun and Sword: An Encyclopedia of Japanese Gangster Films 1955-1980.
- Phoenix, R. “Similarities – Funeral Parade of Roses and A Clockwork Orange.” Recca’s Blog, 12 June 2008, reccaphoenix.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/funeral-orange/.
