Friday, January 18, 2013, 7:00 p.m.

Theater 1 (The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1), T1

Funeral Parade of Roses

1969. Japan. Written and directed by Toshio Matsumoto. With Peter, Osamu Ogasawara, Toyosaburo Uchiyama. “A carnivalesque melding of documentary vérité and avant-garde psychedelia, Funeral Parade of Roses offers a shocking and ecstatic journey through the nocturnal underworld of Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood, following the strange misadventures of a rebellious drag queen fending off his/her rivals. Often cited as a major inspiration for Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Matsumoto’s breakthrough film is a visually audacious and lyrically abstract testament to the vertiginous daring of the postwar Japanese avant-garde art and film scenes. Matsumoto orchestrates a series of quite astonishing visual set pieces, including actual performances by the influential street theater group Zero-Jigen” (Haden Guest, Harvard Film Archive). Print lent by Harvard Film Archive; courtesy the filmmaker. In Japanese; English subtitles. 107 min.

Image: Bara no Soretsu (Funeral Parade of Roses). 1969. Japan. Written and directed by Toshio Matsumoto

Funeral Parade of Roses

In the Film exhibition