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What can be said about Funeral Parade of Roses other than that it is the personification of a fever dream, and the definition of a “mindfuck.” Toshio Matsumoto’s 1969 cult film is nothing but a nightmare that stares down at you with glaring eyes, and never allows you the opportunity for a rest even after it’s over because it will stay with you and haunt you for days. The images are so stark and hellish that one begins to believe that they are in the pits of hell, either that, or inside the mind of a mad genius. Matsumoto’s controversial film was a re-telling of the classic Oedipus Rex tale by Sophocles, and was given a brief release in the US in 1970.

Notorious for its candid portrayal of several drag queens and how their lives intersect with one another, the film played an enormous influence on Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 shock-masterpiece A Clockwork Orange. Featuring a superb electronic score that mixes music of old and new, Funeral Parade of Roses was the film that inspired Kubrick to find an electronic score for his upcoming film, which turned out to be A Clockwork Orange.

Funeral Parade of Roses is arguably one of the most visionary, trance-inducing films ever made. It depicts the unforgiving reality of transvestites, in particular Eddie, whose horrible past continues to haunt him everywhere he goes, and finally merges together with his present life. Eddie was portrayed by singer, performer and sometime actor Peter, the stage name of Shinnosuke Ikehata, who was only 17 years old when the film was released.

The film was made during a time when the movie-making industry was at its most experimental stage since the development of filmmaking in the 1910s and 20s. Employing drug-induced surrealism and avant-garde aesthetics, Funeral Parade of Roses is a film that is more concerned with pure emotions and sensations rather than pure intellectuality. After 40 years of being locked away in the vaults of obscurity, the film remains one of the ultimate enigmas in cult film history. In fact, to this day, it has never been given a proper DVD release in the United States and only became available on the foreign market several years ago.

Funeral Parade of Roses was Toshio Matsumoto’s feature film debut. He began his career by making experimental shorts in the late 50s and 60s and continued playing with the aesthetics of film with his first feature length work. He directed several others films in the 70s and 80s which have also remained relatively unknown since their release.

The haunting and surreal original score by Jôji Yuasa, and excellent cinematography by Tatsuo Suzuki make the film a memorable one. It manages to be a mosaic of music, montage, and the sex & drugs scene of the late-60s Tokyo underworld. The risks the filmmaker takes with the story and characters and the way he experiments with the camera work is phenomenal. Funeral Parade of Roses is a must for cult movie fans. Be prepared for an extremely disturbing and bloody conclusion.

Toshio Matsumoto - (1969) Funeral Parade of Roses.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 45 min
Size: 	2.58 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	784x576 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	3 132 kb/s
BPP: 	0.289
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s
#2:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s (Commentary by Chris Desjardins)

https://nitro.download/view/1CF20750936023F/Toshio_Matsumoto_-_(1969)_Funeral_Parade_of_Roses.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Toshio Matsumoto – Bara no sôretsu AKA Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Ecstatis is a short minimalist experimental film by Toshio Matsumoto that is partly featured in Funeral Parade of Roses.

0.99GB | 11m 08s | 1396×1080 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/CE53034C2561113/Ecstasis.1969.1080p.BluRay.x264-Poaro.mkv

Language(s):None
Subtitles:None

The post Toshio Matsumoto – Ecstasis (1969) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

While extracting and polishing their blocks of stone, stonecutters used to say the stone is coming to life. This paradox provided Matsumoto with the best metaphor for what making a film is all about. In his opinion, filmmakers work images in the same way that stonecutters work stones.

637MB | 24m 29s | 768×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/C34DD6F06C83126/Ishi.no.uta.AKA.The.Song.of.Stone.1963.576p.BluRay.x264-J2GHJ.mkv

https://rapidgator.net/file/a80c02f6a2201d70f0fdd68db08cce8b/Ishi.no.uta.AKA.The.Song.of.Stone.1963.576p.BluRay.x264-J2GHJ.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English (Muxed)

The post Toshio Matsumoto – Ishi no uta AKA The Song of Stone (1963) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

ĀTMAN is a visual tour-de-force based on the idea of the subject at the centre of the circle created by camera positions (480 such positions). Shooting frame-by-frame the filmmaker set up an increasingly rapid circular motion. ĀTMAN is an early Buddhist deity often connected with destruction; the Japanese aspect is stressed by the devil mask of Hangan, from the Noh, and by using both Noh music and the general principle of acceleration often associated with Noh drama.

328MB | 11m 49s | 768×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/2C7453AB328F4C8/Atman.1975.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):No dialogue
Subtitles:not needed

The post Toshio Matsumoto – Atman (1975) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Metastasis presents layered projections of a toilet but both the name and the equipment (Matsumoto used an Electro Color Processor a machine commonly used by doctors) convey the ever-present fear of cancer in Japan of that time.

166MB | 8m 09s | 768×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/25AD810C8B4026B/Metastasis.1971.576p.Bluray.x264-DeMT.mkv

Language(s):No dialogue
Subtitles:not needed

The post Toshio Matsumoto – Metastasis – Shinchin taisha (1971) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A man is confined to a mental institution after trying to murder his fiancee. Two doctors relate his problem to an Asian philosophy that states that mental defects are transmitted from generation to generation. He learns that one of his distant ancestors murdered his wife as a way of demonstrating a point to his lord about the importance of love over the emptiness of lust and to drive home the point further, created a series of illustrations of the dead woman decaying which in turn trigger the memories of his distant descendent. But is the whole thing merely a game concocted by the two doctors, who may even have driven themselves mad?

2.49GB | 1 h 49 min | 1024×552 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/5C56A8B67970E71/Dogra.Magra.1988.BDRIP.576p.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

Language:Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Toshio Matsumoto – Dogura magura AKA Dogra Magra (1988) first appeared on Cinema of the World.