• 薔薇の葬列 (Funeral Parade of Roses)

7/16/21 (Fri)

Matsumoto Toshio’s uncategorizable 1969 film about “gay boys”, a phrase used here mainly to refer to transvestites or male-to-female transgenders (the line isn’t clearly drawn). Having just seen John Cassavetes’ fragmented Shadows of ten years earlier, I thought I was ready for anything, but this psychedelic romp steps even further into the Twilight Zone. It’s drawn loosely from Oedipus Rex, which forms a framework of sorts, but that’s hardly the point in this house-of-mirrors experience.

The nominal story, set in contemporary Tokyo, revolves around the young and beautiful bar “hostess” Eddie (i.e., Oedipus – get it?), who is battling the bar’s aging kimono-clad Mama-san for the affections of an older gent. Eddie, whose long-absent father exists in his mind only as an old photo with the face burnt out, is haunted by memories of his mother laughing at his effeminate nature, beating him mercilessly after catching him putting on makeup, and screaming in horror as he stabs her to death when he finds her with a man (whom he also murders). Somehow he has found his way into Tokyo’s underground gay world, where he reigns as the most popular hostess at his bar among businessmen looking for a thrill. He ultimately wins the older gent, unwittingly causing the distraught Mama-san to commit suicide, and takes over the bar. Anyone familiar with Oedipus can see the rest coming, but it follows it more closely than I had imagined (too closely, to be honest) with one real shocker a la Buñuel in an expressionistic ending. Let’s just say that I’m glad the film’s in black-and-white.

In any event, the story as noted is secondary to the head-spinning visuals and dizzy editing, which made me feel like I was watching a washing machine with random images spinning back and forth. The film opens with the curious quote, “I am wound and blade, victim and executioner”, then shows a man and young boy making love in washed-out visuals of various body parts (a nipple, a hand, a torso) that slowly come together. Eddie’s story becomes clear over the course of the film as we gradually piece together his sporadic memories, which included multi-repeated scenes that are themselves interspersed with surreal set pieces – the transvestites peeing at urinals in a men’s bathroom, a lineup of naked man seen repeatedly from behind with the derriere of one sporting a rose (a symbol in Japan of homosexuality, also referred to in the film’s title), a cartoonish street fight between three hostesses and three real women (loved the Kabuki-like threat), extended orgiastic dancing in a tiny room by Eddie and other weed-fueled partiers (after a long clip showing them passing the joint around), a hearse repeatedly passing through, a long ascent in an elevator with unseen characters, a shower scene that recalls Psycho, actual news clips, and visions of the mother laughing derisively and then begging for mercy. The weed-soaked party, where boys and girls are putting together a film, turns into an orgy as anyone who can’t walk a straight line is attacked and stripped naked by the others. A cat fight between Eddie and the bar’s mama over their mutual male target, watched theatrically by the others from behind curtains and counter, starts with cowboy hats and popguns, then has them spouting insults in comic-strip speech balloons, then devolves into an all-out fight with the film running at hyper-speed to organ grinder music. The filmmakers actually step out of the film at times to interview some of the “gay boys” in the story (Eddie himself says he sympathizes with his portrayal other than the incest part) or ask how the actors feel about marijuana, giving the fictional piece a documentary feel that seems to be commenting on itself. One sex scene between Eddie and a black American turns out to be a staged affair as the camera pulls back to show the director filming a close-up of the moaning Eddie while the black actor leans back and watches. The famous film critic Yodogawa Nagaharu cheekily even pops up at one point to comment and recommend another film (with his signature signoff, “Sayonara, sayonara, sayonara”), and directors Ninagawa Yukio and Shinoda Masaharu supposedly appear somewhere in this muddle as well. There are also the title cards popping up throughout, not to mention the film-rating notice in the middle of the story, reminding us that we are watching a movie.

The film is exhausting and exhilarating. Evidently part of a movement known as the Japanese New Wave, it’s essentially a movie about itself as the bombarding images, whirling camerawork and such simply call attention to the director rather than the content. But the unapologetic, non-judgmental portrayal of the gay scene that emerges from the chaos is revelatory and probably couldn’t be done today. The “women” are who they are, and while not all profess to be happy with their lot, the film shows them warts and all with no moral lesson or artificial happy ending. Eddie, running from a lecher, happens to escape into an exhibition of masks where the narration discusses the masks that we all wear (“The true face always feels the loneliness”). This constitutes a theme of sorts, especially as Eddie either masks or unmasks himself by wearing clothing and makeup associated with a different gender. The film was broadly about the underground scene at the time, including drug deals, interracial sex, stoned artists, male-female orgies, murder and other pleasantries. But it is the gay relationship that propels and defines the film. The wacky approach feels self-consciously artsy at times, but it’s like a dream within Eddie’s head, with many floating disjointed images eventually coming together in a portrait of a would-be lady. The subtitles were generally excellent, though a few clinkers pop up: 悪い人ね (“You bad boy, you”, said playfully by a woman to a man as they run to her bedroom) is translated as “You pervert”, and when the man is brutally stabbed to death, his cries are translated, “It hurts!” And there’s no way to translate the feminine way that the hostesses speak, which identify them as women.

The actors, other than Kurosawa stalwart Tsuchiya Yoshio as the two-timing gent, were all amateurs, and that proved a very good thing. The androgynous Peter, who has since become something of a gay icon, was making his debut here, and his forthright portrayal (including his interview as an actor playing the character) was the film’s single biggest asset. He was totally convincing in a role that could have been written expressly for him; it hardly felt like acting even in the more melodramatic moments toward the end. Ogasawara Osamu also stood out as the Mama-san, but all performers fit their parts like a glove.

The film is unquestionably a product of the psychedelic 1960s, and its mix of flashbacks, flash-forwards, bawdy images, news clips, recurring scenes, blurry or washed-out filming, shattering of the fourth wall, rapid-fire images and such will not be to everyone’s taste. If they ever film Ulysses, it might look like this. A unique experience, to be sure.