The British Film Institute has detailed its upcoming Blu-ray release of Toshio Matsumoto's film Funeral Parade of Roses (1969), starring Pîtâ, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Emiko Azuma, Toshiya Fujita, and Hôsei Komatsu. The release will be available for purchase on May 18.
This kaleidoscopic masterpiece, one of the most subversive, intoxicating films of the 60s and a classic of queer cinema, is a headlong dive into a dazzling unseen Tokyo night-world of drag queen bars and fabulous divas.
Toshio Matsumoto, one of Japan's leading experimental filmmakers, bends and distorts time, and freely mixes documentary interviews, Brechtian film-within-a-film asides, Oedipal premonitions of disaster, his own avant-garde shorts (eight of which are included on this release), and even on-screen cartoon balloons. Trans actor Peter gives an astonishing performance as Eddie, hostess at Bar Genet – where she's ignited a violent love-triangle with reigning drag queen Leda for the attentions of club owner Gonda.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM completed by Cinelicious Pics
Feature-length commentary by Chris D, punk poet, singer, actor, film historian and author of Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film
Original Japanese trailer (1969)
US theatrical trailer (2017)
Eight recently restored avant-garde shorts by Toshio Matsumoto made between 1961 and 1975 (105 mins total):
Nishijin (1961)
The Song of Stone (1963)
Ecstasis (1969)
Metastasis (1971)
Expansion (1972)
Mona Lisa (1973)
Siki Soku Ze Ku (1975)
Atman (1975)
Booklet: 34-page booklet with essays by Jim O'Rourke, the BFI's Espen Bale, Hirofumi Sakamoto with Hiroshi Eguchi and Koji Kawasaki, notes and credits for the feature, the short films and special features.