Tuesday, January 31, 2023

JAPANESE UNDERGROUND

 

I don't watch too much television outside of my BBC and PBS shows. So, if I do have the tube on, I often have on TCM as I love old movies. Being a night owl, especially on weekends, I have noticed that TCM plays many arthouse films, and some pretty graphic and racy movies to my surprise. This past weekend was a gem, I had seen once, and had almost forgotten about it. TCM was the only network I have ever seen air the film. The film- Funeral Parade of Roses. The film has always been a twisted favorite and I feel it was before it's time and could be an important film to see if your LGBTQ. It covers gay culture along with typical 60's hippie/drug era and shows you what Japanese culture was back then to young adults. It's a drama along with some psychological tendencies. It gained its popularity when it's said it was the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick to make A Clockwork Orange. Director Toshio Matsumoto's shattering film, a kaleidoscopic masterpiece is one of the most subversive and intoxicating films of the late 1960's: a headlong dive into a dazzling, unseen Tokyo night-world of drag queens, trans-girls and fabulous divas, fueled by booze, drugs, fuzz guitars, performance art and lots of black mascara.

The movies follow Eddie, as she deals with her hateful mother, and another drag queen that despises her, all the while dealing with the booming hippie culture of the 1960's. Eddie is played by a transgender actor named Peter, who gives an astonishing Edie Sedgwick/Warhol-ish superstar like performance. Eddie ends up as hostess at Bar Genet- where she's ignited a violent love triangle with the reining drag queen Leda, gains the attentions of the club owner Gonda. Whether laughing with drunken businessmen, eating ice-cream with her girlfriends, or fighting in the streets with local girl gangs, Pete's ravishing Eddie is something to behold.

In amongst all that, Matsumoto bends and distorts time here, freely mixing documentary interviews, Brechtian film -within-a film asides, Oedipal premonitions of disaster, his own avant-garde shorts and even on-screen cartoon balloons into a dizzying whirl of images, and sound, and music. What surprised me the most all these years later was I had forgotten how gory it was. The very last five minutes are graphic and shocking and squeamish for some. The end scene reminded me a bit of the shocking end to Helter Skelter. There is also the scene where Eddie catches her abusive mother with a lover and stabs them repeatedly. Of course, I had also forgotten about the bombshell twist at the end too. Very twisted.

But kudo's to TCM for playing this arthouse film. This is a key work of the Japanese New Wave and queer cinema. After that movie ended, they aired Performance, which I had never seen. But it was worth staying up till 4:45am. I mean an arty, bohemian film. it had a young, hot and sexy James Fox and Mick Jagger in a bisexual threesome!!!! I recommend viewing both films and have a cock-a-tail to two to enhance the experience.

22 comments:

  1. Anonymous1/31/2023

    Pat Lark says,
    I can love me a good art house film. But I'll be honest, subtitles make me nuts. Maybe it's my eyesight issues but I can't read the dialogue and watch the action at the same time.

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    1. I will admit at the subtitles in the movie Flash very quickly, but I really didn't even read them and I still knew what was going on.

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  2. Sorry, I lived through the 60's and they were not a very good time, and in socially conservative Japan, anyone caught on the street in drag would have been jailed faster than you can blink.

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    1. If they were caught being the key word.

      Asian trans girls and Drag Queens were always so feminine it was hard to distinguish if they were really men. Unless they got their legs pried apart.

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  3. Oh, this is a must see.
    Looking for it as I type. Love the topic, love the fashion and love that era! I also love A Clockwork Orange, but that's probably worth its own post.
    You always come up with the coolest things.

    XOXO

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    1. I enjoyed it, although I will say it's definitely more nerve-wracking then A Clockwork Orange. YouTube used to have the movie in the entirety, but I don't seem to find it.

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  4. Will see if I can stream this from somewhere. From the title, I thought the post was about Tokyo's Metro system.

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    1. I've had no luck finding a place to view it... I also have a looked too deeply yet either. I suspect it might be on demand under my TCM tab. Once movies air they usually show up in there.

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  5. Looks verrry interesting. Especially that line-up of asses.

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  6. I had no idea TCM plays these types of movies. I'll have to keep an eye out on that channel the next time I turn on the YouTube TV app.

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  7. Sheesh, sounds like I need to start tuning in to TCM!

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  8. I remember this movie well. It's been ages since I saw it. And you're right the movie was way out of its time. As much as I enjoy the movie I can't help but think I had too much to drink when I watch it.

    And I also agree about performance. James Fox certainly was hot when he was young I was amazed at how much nudity was in that for the time.

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  9. I too had forgotten all about that movie. William and I had seen that when it first came out when we went into New York City once. At the time I had no idea what I was watching except I thought I had a bad psychedelic mushroom. I should watch it again. Of course you know I'll take a art house films over films they come out with these days.

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  10. Well that's looks like a crazy movie just from the trailer. How have I never heard of this? And where I wonder can I watch it? So far I searched YouTube and haven't seen it there.

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  11. I did research on this one as part of my Let's All Go To The Movies - It's A Drag Edition. Fascinating stuff, a real artifact and a bit of gay history that does not get enough attention. Thanks for shining your starry starry light upon it. Kizzes.

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  12. I'd seen plenty of stills from this movie, but I've never watched the whole thing. Drawing attention to its parallels with A Clockwork Orange doesn't actually encourage me to "go there", either, tbh.

    Mick Jagger in a lascivious ménage à trois with James Fox, on the other hand, is far more salivating viewing! Jx

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  13. This film is so incredibly ahead of its time, while also being very much of its time. The underground was very much crazy like that. Crazy and well hidden.

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  14. This is too funny, only because I too saw this on TCM recently a few months ago, very late or really early...at 300 am on the TCM channel. Very interesting movie.

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  15. i feel as though i just had a bad acid trip when i saw that movie once.

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  16. I like TCM for the same reasons; some great classics but also some films you might never see anywhere else.

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  17. I watch quite a bit of PBS and talking about old movies. My goal is to try to watch all the films Orson Welles did
    Coffee is on and stay safe

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  18. What a very odd movie...and I saw a clip of the ending. YIKES!

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