Every month one of us makes the rest of the crew watch a movie they’ve never seen before and we discuss it afterwards. This month Brandon made Britnee, Hanna, and Boomer watch Funeral Parade of Roses (1969).

Brandon: When we were compiling our ballots for the Best Films of the 2010s earlier this year, I spent a lot of time thinking about what themes & topics defined the decade in moviegoing for me. Along with our increasingly intimate relationship with technology and the looming threat of total economic collapse, something that stood out to me as one of the major stories of the 2010s was the evolution of our cultural understanding of gender. Some of the most potent cinema of the decade (particularly recent titles like The Wild Boys, Knife+Heart, and The Misandrists) were the films that reflected our cultural deconstructions & reinterpretations of socially-enforced gender norms, which have been cruelly limiting & embarrassingly outdated for far too long. Curiously, though, the trip to the theater in the last decade that sticks out to me as the most aggressively confrontational in its disregard for traditional gender boundaries wasn’t a 2010s film at all. That honor belongs to the 2017 restoration of Funeral Parade of Roses, which is over half-a-century old and still stands out as one of the most sharply audacious films I can remember seeing on the topic.

Part French New Wave, part Benny Hill, and part gore-soaked horror, Funeral Parade of Roses is a rebellious amalgamation of wildly varied styles & tones all synthesized into an aesthetically cohesive, undeniably punk energy. Shot in a stark black & white that simultaneously recalls both Goddard & Multiple Maniacs, the film approximates a portrait of queer youth culture in late-60s Japan. Referred to in the film’s English translation as “gay boys,” its cast mostly consists of trans women & drag queens who survive as sex workers & drug dealers in Tokyo. Their story is told through techniques as wide ranging as documentary-style “interviews” that include meta commentary on the film itself and high-fantasy fables that pull direct influence from Oedipus Rex. Although there is no traditional plot, the character of Eddie (played by Pîtâ) becomes our de facto protagonist as we watch her rise above the ranks of her fellow sex workers to become the Madamme of the Genet (a lovely Our Lady of the Flowers reference, that). Becoming the figurehead of a queer brothel obviously invites its own set of unwanted attentions & potentials for violence, which ultimately does give Funeral Parade of Roses an unfortunately tragic air. So much of the film is a nonstop psychedelic party, however, that this classic “road to ruin” structure never really registers. All shocks of horrific violence & dramatic tension are entirely offset by an irreverently celebratory energy that carries the audience home in a damn good mood, no matter what Oedipal fate Eddie is made to suffer.

Plot is just about the last thing that matters in this kind of deliberately-fractured art film, though. Much like the Czech classic Daisies, Funeral Parade of Roses finds all of its power in the potency of its imagery and in the political transgression of its flippant acts of rebellious pranksterism. Eddie & her sex-worker crew hang out with pot-smoking beatniks (whom Eddie deals pot to, conveniently) at soirees that often devolve into psychedelic dance parties staged before an almighty Beatles poster. They admire performance art war protests in the streets. Their out-of-character interviews & in-the-moment narratives are often disrupted by dissociative images like a rose squeezed between ass cheeks or cigarette ash emerging from a family portrait. Whether picking girl-gang fights with other groups of women at the mall or simply applying false eyelashes & lipstick in the mirror, everything Eddie & the girls get into is treated as an artful, politically subversive act. In a way, their mere existence was subversive, just as the public presence of transgender people is still somehow a hot-button political topic today. Funeral Parade of Roses often undercuts its own visual experimentation by laughing at the culture of Art Film pretension trough nonsensical asides or by using the tune of “The More We GetTogether” to score its pranks & transgressions. Its most far-out visual flourishes or most horrific moments of gore will often be interrupted by a shrugging “I don’t get it” interjection from a narrator or side character. It’s consistently just as funny as it is erotic, horrific, and visually stunning, never daring to take itself too seriously.

Even half a century after its initial release, Funeral Parade of Roses feels daring & transgressive in a way a lot of modern queer cinema unfortunately pales in comparison to. You can feel a progressive rebelliousness in its street interviews where trans women dodge aggressive, eyeroll-worthy questions with lines like, “I was born that way,” or “I’m just really enjoying myself right now.” What’s even more forward-thinking are the film’s lengthy, sensuous depictions of queer sex. Its sexual content doesn’t do much to push the boundaries of R-rating eroticism, but its quiet passion & sensuality erase ideas of gender essentialism or sexual orientation, instead becoming simple depictions of flesh-on-flesh intimacy. Both this genuinely erotic eye for queer intimacy and topical references to still-relevant issues like street harassment, teenage homelessness, parental abuse, and transgender identity make Funeral Parade of Roses feel excitingly modern & cutting edge, despite its aggressively flippant attitude & last-minute tragic downfall. Still, I could see the outdated terminology of the way it discusses gender & sexuality or the way it ultimately conforms to a queer-tragedy cliché with its Oedipal conclusion falling short of modern morality standards. I could also see its highly stylized, aggressively playful visual experimentation distracting from the dramatic empathy at its core, especially on a first watch. You can’t behave this wildly without alienating someone.

Hanna, there is a lot of visual & cultural information here for us to cover in just one conversation. Too much, even. So, I want to start small: Outside its stylistic flourishes & cultural significance, were you at all emotionally invested in this film’s central story? Was Eddie’s Oedipal journey engaging on a dramatic level, or were the film’s other, flashier qualities too overwhelming for you to fully sink into the narrative?

Hanna: Eddie’s arc did engage me, and I was totally immersed in her world, but I can’t say I was fully invested in her story. I don’t necessarily think I was overwhelmed by the rest of the film, although I would definitely be more grounded in her story upon a second viewing; I think that I always felt some distance and un-reality in her narrative because her character was intentionally refracted through the various experimental mechanisms (e.g., the abstract cuts, mask monologues, and the documentarian asides). The way she traveled through the membranes of the movie—in and out of dreams, forward and backward in time, into and out of character—left the impression of a person who is slowly dissolving. The film even includes a (gorgeously shot) interview with Pîtâ about how she feels playing the role of Eddie, which further distances us from the narrative; we are aware that the Eddie is one mask, representative of many people in Tokyo’s underground queer scene. All of that, layered on top of an Oedipal framework, situates Eddie’s story somewhere between a personal and communal context. This actually didn’t take away from the movie for me at all; t was a totally moving, surreal experience, like I was sharing a dream with someone.

Having said all that, Funeral Parade of Roses is also one of the most intensely sensual, wonderfully humanist movies I’ve seen in a long time, especially the scenes outside of the Oedipal plotline. Sex is shot like queer Edward Weston photographs come to life, and parties reverberate with that pure, corporeal 60s euphoria that you can feel (and smell) through the screen. One scene follows Eddie as she gets ready for the day, lingering on her immaculate, deliberate makeup application of eyeliner, then lipstick (in keeping with the surrealism of the film, this scene is almost immediately followed by a bizarre pseudo-shootout between Eddie and her rival, Leda). These moments of tactile intimacy balance out the porousness of Eddie’s experience really beautifully.

I definitely agree that Eddie’s Oedipal descent hasn’t aged quite as well as the rest of the movie, but the inclusion of Pîtâs interview added some nuance to the ending. Pîtâ muses that her background, lifestyle, and personality are all very similar to Eddie’s, and that she sympathized with the character except for “the incest part.” This snippet allows Pîtâ to publicly disavow the tragic queer narrative, or at least acknowledge that it doesn’t adequately or fairly represent queer life in a film that otherwise “portrays gay boys beautifully.” Boomer, how do you think Funeral Parade fits in the canon of queer cinema? How did you feel about the film’s resolution?

Boomer: A few weeks ago, Brandon posted a link to The Swampflix Canon across our various social media platforms. I took at look at my contributions to that list and realized that, to those who might know me solely by my presence here, I’m a complete weirdo. My additions are, as Brandon put it, “Populist superhero spectacles, obscure Euro horrors, and nothing in-between,” and he’s absolutely right, although I would add that my contributions that fall outside of that binary (Head Over Heels, Puzzle of a Downfall Child, Citizen Ruth, Queen of Earth, An Unmarried Woman, etc.) add a genre of “women on the verge” to my bizarre palate (and pallet). If you mix my love of women on the edge, Euro horror, and queer cinema, you get the above-mentioned Knife+Heart, which probably explains why it ended up being my number one movie of 2019 and the 2010s. So you would think that the main throughline of Funeral Parade of Roses, of Eddie’s violent streak and the mythologically influenced finale would be really up my alley, but honestly, my favorite part is actually the “women on the verge” element of Leda’s plotline. The fear of being replaced is strong with me, and that was much more resonant to me than Eddie’s story; I sympathized with Leda from the start, and Eddie didn’t have my sympathies.

If you distill the Oedipus story to its two core tragic points, the marquee moments are Oedipus killing one parent and having intercourse with the other. The former isn’t a huge part of queer culture, luckily, but in a metaphorical way, the latter is, in a way that makes this film seem less dated to me than other elements. Compare the nonthreatening lead performance in Love, Simon (parodied here) to the queer people on parade here, which is much grittier and soaked in blood, literally at times. Queer men often grow up having difficult relationships with their closed-minded fathers, and as a result often seek out the guidance of older gay men as they come of age, and strange quasi-paternal relationships form out of these bonds, and those relationships are not entirely asexual. Metaphorically speaking, Eddie finding and fucking the father that he never knew strikes me as being a core part of many queer men’s earliest relationships; it’s only nonrepresentational when it’s literal, which is basically film in a nutshell. There have been many attempts to pathologize why so many young men out there are looking for their “daddy,” and the going theory is that they are looking for someone to initiate them into adulthood the way that a father figure would but that a straight father can’t, because he doesn’t belong to that world. I don’t know what it is, but Eddie’s journey has the ring of truth to me, putting it pretty squarely in the queer canon, even if the incestuous nature of the plot, borrowed from Western mythology, is icky.

Britnee, I guess this is becoming a pattern for me: I don’t seem to enjoy the experimental parts of the experimental films that we watch. I found the sped-up footage annoying (I know that the music used in multiple undercranked scenes is “The More We Get Together,” but when I reply it in my mind it’s always “Yackety Sax”), and the interviews with the actors and filmmakers were more distracting to me than anything else (although I found the interviews with street queens to be meaningful and to contribute something thematically), but I know you usually find them more digestible. Is that the case here? Did you find them to contribute or distract? Were there any that you like more than others?

Britnee: I actually enjoyed the experimental parts of the film more than anything that followed a clear storyline. The sped-up scenes with “The More We Get Together” blaring in the background were my favorite parts of the film! The carnival sounding tune had a way of making the subject matter seem darker than it already was, all while forcing me to hum the tune while doing my daily tasks for days after watching the movie. Perhaps my current mental state has something to do with my appreciation of all thing wacky in this film (thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic). I’m finding myself enjoying art that is more on the eccentric side more so than usual because nothing really makes sense anymore, and I kind of don’t want to make sense out of anything for the time being. The experimental components of Funeral Parade of Roses did prevent me from focusing on the film’s plot (if there really was one), but they also pulled me into a wild gender-queer universe that I loved so much. I honestly only grasped bits and pieces of the plot (mostly the Oedipus story), but I still feel a though I got just as much out of the film than if I would have been 100% focused on the story.

The opening scene really had me hooked on whatever the film was going to throw my way. The grainy black and white close-ups of two bodies making love without any detail to indicate if those bodies were male or female was one of the most beautiful things that I’ve seen in a long time. The other scene that I found to be really striking was the big finale, where Eddie gouges out his eyes Oedipus style. The way that the world around him reacts to such a violent act was bone chilling. The stillness of the people on the streets, watching Eddie without offering assistance or making any commotion really sat with me for a long while after the film was over. The opening and closing scenes were like the brioche bun on a Popeye’s sandwich, holding the spicy chicken that makes up the rest of the film together beautifully.

Lagniappe

Hanna: Honestly, I would recommend this Funeral Parade of Roses on the imagery alone; I wish I could make this movie into a quilt. Over the last few weeks, my mind has repeatedly drifted back into the black-and-white dreamland, running its fingers over the masks and roses and blood and wigs. Plus, it was totally refreshing to the Japanese version of a stoned-out record orgy.

Britnee: I was surprised by how many parts of Funeral Parade of Roses reminded me of A Clockwork Orange. I was very much into A Clockwork Orange in high school, partially due to some of the cheesy punk music I listened to that was inspired by the film, like Lower Class Brats. The sped-up scenes with loud, well-known instrumental music and the up-close focus on Eddie’s eyes with those heavy lower lashes are just a couple elements that were very Clockwork-like. I was not surprised to discover online that Stanley Kubrick was heavily influenced by Funeral Parade of Roses while making the film.

Brandon: As I’m looking at my own contributions to The Swampflix Canon that Boomer referenced—especially my Movie of the Month picks—I’m finding that a lot of these severely low-fi experimental works that punch far above the weight of their resources to approximate arthouse prestige on a shoestring budget: Jubilee, Smithereens, Born in Flames, The Gleaners & I, Girl Walk//All Day, Local Legends, etc. I hope this strand of D.I.Y. outsider art is not becoming a nuisance to the rest of the crew, because I apparently can’t help but be inspired & energized by it. The best aspect of punk is its anyone-can-do-this democratization of art production, opening the gates for people without proper funds or training to have their own voice in a cultural space that normally locks them out. Funeral Parade of Roses would never be able to tell this story this wildly if it were made through proper production or distribution channels, so I have to admit one of the things I admire most about it is that it’s a volatile, dirt-cheap experiment that’s likely to alienate, confuse, or annoy a significant portion of its audience at every turn. That very same quality makes it something of a risk to recommend to friends.

Boomer: About two years ago, I met someone on Tinder. I won’t deadname her or risk outing her by using her current name, so let’s call her Veronica. At the time, Veronica was still figuring herself out, and although we weren’t compatible romantically, we became good friends, and I introduced her to the Austin Film Society, where we attended a screening of On the Silver Globe. Veronica started going to more screenings there, including Funeral Parade of Roses, although I didn’t make it to that one. Seeing the film transformed her, as she went from identifying as a cisman, to an occasional self-described cismale cross-dresser, to genderfluid, to finally coming out as a transwoman in 2019. I may not be the biggest fan of Roses, but it sparked a fire in my friend Veronica that burned away the untrue parts of herself, and that’s fucking rad.

Upcoming Movies of the Month
July: Boomer presents Marjoe (1972)
August: Britnee presents Three Women (1977)
September: Hanna presents Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

-The Swampflix Crew