Featured Audience Ratings

• Saskia D

  
  Quite an experience, and a new one for me for that matter. I've watched all the extra's on the DVD, including Matsumoto's interview and commentary on the film, and that made it a little more accessible for me :) Matsumoto rejected a lot of boys for the part of Eddie,… More
  Quite an experience, and a new one for me for that matter. I've watched all the extra's on the DVD, including Matsumoto's interview and commentary on the film, and that made it a little more accessible for me :) Matsumoto rejected a lot of boys for the part of Eddie, and I totally agree with him that Peter is perfect for the part. What can I say to give you an impression on what the movie is about? It's a "modern (Greek) tragedy" inspired on Oedipus Rex. Although I did connect to Eddie, I didn't really connect to rest of the story, but maybe that's because I'm totally new to the whole avant-garde stuff. There are some beautiful aesthetic scenes in the movie, and I love the short interviews that he cut through the movie. <div style="width:300px;"><a href="http://www.flixster.com/servlet/embed/photo/link/11315281"><img src="http://www.flixster.com/servlet/embed/photo/11315281.jpg" border="0"/></a><div style="text-align:center;font-size:10px;"><a href="http://www.flixster.com">

• Eric B

  
  "Funeral Parade of Roses" has extra notoriety because its use of depraved, sped-up footage apparently inspired a similar "A Clockwork Orange" sex scene. But if this is your reason for seeing the movie, don't bother. You won't find the resemblance too… More
  "Funeral Parade of Roses" has extra notoriety because its use of depraved, sped-up footage apparently inspired a similar "A Clockwork Orange" sex scene. But if this is your reason for seeing the movie, don't bother. You won't find the resemblance too striking. This Japanese film is not easy to watch, but its radical style will be familiar to Nagisa Oshima fans. Director Toshio Matsumoto throws in every jagged, disorienting trick he can manage, including jump cuts, flashbacks, captions, repeated scenes, dialogue with cartoon bubbles, an avant-garde score (murky variations on the children's song "Did You Ever See a Lassie?"), shots of the camera crew, bizarre inserted imagery (a flower stuck in a nude man's behind is a particular favorite) and cast interviews. Even the film's title is perversely withheld until 18 minutes have passed. There is not much story -- what's more important is the experimental filmmaking and the prominence of real-life transvestites. The homosexual love-triangle plot finds drag queens Eddie and Leda (both first-time actors) competing for the affections of club-owner Gonda (Yoshio Tsuchiya). The charismatic, unusually "attractive" Eddie is also nagged by traumatic childhood memories. But most of the screen time just depicts incidental behavior such as sex play, dancing, fighting, marijuana use, political protest and carousing in bars. This lack of narrative momentum can be wearying, but the shocking climax is a significant compensation.

• Dimitris S

  
  What if writing novelties of say...Proust or Xingjian were to be translated as a neon mural of experimental musical compositions...add some Oedipal symbols,disjointed time-frames,oh..and vertical motives of multi-sexuality! There you have it,a "blow-up" of… More
  What if writing novelties of say...Proust or Xingjian were to be translated as a neon mural of experimental musical compositions...add some Oedipal symbols,disjointed time-frames,oh..and vertical motives of multi-sexuality! There you have it,a "blow-up" of docu-confession,Matsumoto's personal ode to youth,highlighting an era of wine and roses (or if you like: opium and proses)