FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES REVIEWED
“Funeral Parade of Roses” is one of those films that I read about in film studies books. Widely unavailable in America until recently, it’s become arthouse fodder for an age in which that’s steadily losing its meaning. Historically, it’s one of the first international Queer Cinema breakthroughs that served to inspire directors around the world. The design of the film helped Kubrick to conceptualize what he wanted to do with “A Clockwork Orange”. Hell, even the film’s cinematography mirrors Robert Mapplethorpe’s art style.
The second disc comes with a collection of 8 short films taken from around the same era. What’s great about it is that it suggests what Matsumoto is trying to lay down. He plays with imagery and creates a way to say that boundaries don’t exist. Time is often distorted in these films, so aesthetically it might not play to a large crowd. But, this is one of those movies and short film collections that you need to see. What Matsumoto was doing with identity politics in Japanese cinema was influential. Hell, he was shooting trans actors when America was still months away from showing tits onscreen.
When you put things on a timeline, American cinema seems juvenile.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- 8 short films
- Trailers
- Commentary
A/V STATS
- 1.66:1 / 1.33:1 1080p transfer
- DTS-HD MONO