Toshio Matsumoto's breakthrough feature-length debut is a kaleidoscopic portrait of the vibrant countercultures in post-war Japan. Produced by Art Theatre Guild, the independent cinema production and distribution company at the heart of the Japanese New Wave, Funeral Parade of Roses centres on Eddie, a charismatic drag queen who contends with professional rivalries and wrestles with demons of the past while working in Tokyo’s flourishing gay bar scene.

The film bristles with New Wave cultural references and documentation of the era’s avant-garde movement. Funeral Parade of Roses combines nonfiction interviews, distorted television footage, manipulated images, and bewildering staged vignettes with dizzying camera angles and mind-bending crosscuts—all attesting to the anxieties of a modernising Japan caught in the throes of sociopolitical change and fomenting unrest. A psychedelic adaptation of the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, Funeral Parade of Roses captures the spirit of the times within a paradox of youth and queer identity.

Tanaami Keiichi’s animated shorts will be presented as pre-shows to this screening. In Crayon Angel, clips of war planes and bombings tinted with blistering orange are ominous reminders of the Tanaami’s childhood in Tokyo spent under air raids during World War II. Sweet Friday features a jazzy rendition of Once Upon a Dream from the 1959 Disney film Sleeping Beauty. In the video, psychedelic images of tulips sway in the breeze, as the artist encounters a seductive, blond woman.

This co-presentation reflects the creative, rebellious spirit of the 1960s and 1970s found in the works of Matsumoto and Tanaami, who were pioneers of Japanese experimental cinema.

Toshio Matsumoto (1932–2017), a pioneer of experimental moving images in Japan, and a visual arts theorist and critic. Early in his career, he explored his own views on postwar Japanese society as a documentary filmmaker. Matsumoto worked closely with the art group Jikken Kobo ('Experimental Workshop') in the early days, and is known for his avant-garde works such as Silver Wheel (1955) and Poem of Stone (1963), which was composed by composer Toru Takemitsu, one of the Jikken Kobo ('Experimental Workshop') members. Matsumoto explores structuralism and abstract film and electronic music, and has taught for many years at Kyoto University of the Arts and Nihon University School of Art.

Tanaami Keiichi (b. 1936, Japan), a representative of the Japanese Pop Art style. The creation is influenced by European and American cultures, inspired by childhood war memories, covering illustration, animation and other media. In the late 1960s, Tanaami Keiichi visited New York and was influenced by Pop artists such as Andy Warhol. Later, he was known for his colorful style and created unique works.