Bara No Soretsu (aka Funeral Parade Of Roses) (1969)

A transgender "hostess" (Peter) at a gay nightclub is romantically involved with the club's owner (Yoshio Tsuchiya) which infuriates the club's manager (Osamu Ogasawara), a drag queen who is also romantically involved with the club owner. Very loosely adapted from Sophocles' OEDIPUS REX and directed by Toshio Matsumoto. An example of the Japanese New Wave but very much a unique look at the underground gay culture of 1960s Tokyo. I couldn't help but be reminded of the films of Jean Luc Godard as I watched. Matsumoto never lets us forget that we are watching a movie as he interrupts the film's narrative with documentary interviews with gay men, transgender persons and drag queens as well as newsreel footage, artificially speeding up the action and showing the camera filming the movie we are viewing. It's experimental film making and if you're the type that prefers a straight narrative, it may well drive you batty. The film is a product of its era. While it's daring and innovative, the gay lifestyle as shown in the film is pretty depressing. They're all miserable and the ending is a total downer. Peter (aka Shinnosuke Ikehata) is best known to western audiences for playing the fool in Kurosawa's RAN. A must see for anyone remotely interested in gay cinema.