In the last twenty years the cinemas of the East have developed an incredibly sophisticated and diverse body of work, and have been garnering increasing attention in the West, not just at Film Festivals but on the shelves of high street shops. From the charm of the 1980s Hong Kong action flick, through the artistry of China's Fifth Generation and the Tawainese new wave, to the dynamism of the New Korean Cinema; Asian cinema has reinvented film language as we know it, wresting an essentially western medium from its roots and inflecting it with specifically Oriental themes and forms. Often innovative and formally beautiful, Asian film has reinvigorated cinema and began to challenge the dominance of an increasingly stagnant Hollywood. Hollywood's only defence has been to remake Asian films badly. This Blog will provide a personal commentary on the Asian film renaissance.

Monday, 11 December 2006

Wild Japan Day 7 - Funeral Parade of Roses

Funeral Parade of Roses perfectly integrates the disparate techniques of documentary, narrative and experimental cinema, whilst exploring the gay and transexual subculture of Tokyo. Director Toshio Matsumoto, couldn't have chosen a more subversive theme to comment upon his society, still struggling with the nationalism that had brought about the war and deeply patriarchal. Like his contemporary Hiroshi Teshigahara (Woman of the Dunes) Matsumoto also drew on influences from the French new wave and American avant garde, integrating them into a Japanese context and using them to deconstruct the dominant ideologies. Matsumoto incorporates and plays with the Oedipus legend, leading the film to a startlingly grotesque ending that has seemingly influenced Takashi Miike's attacks on the family unit such as Gozu (2004). The use of Oedipus is appropriate given that Nagisa Oshima has referred to the new wave as the 'fatherless generation, both literally (as a result of the war), but also as a symbolic act of defiance. A beautiful and disturbing masterpiece.

Funeral Parade of Roses has just been released by Eureka, which has recently emerged as one of the best DVD labels in the world and is particularly strong on releasing pivotal but neglected 1960s Japanese films. An essay on the film by me is forthcoming on www.firecracker-magazine.com
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)