Eros + Massacre Episode 2: Funeral Parade of Roses with Celeste de la Cabra

Episode two is all about one of my favorite experimental Japanese New Wave films and I’m so grateful to my guest, film analyst Celeste de la Cabra, for agreeing to discuss this one with me. The film’s director, Toshio Matsumoto, has become one of my favorites in recent years and is criminally underrated, so we also spend a little time getting into his other work. Funeral Parade of Roses (1969), his most celebrated film, can best be described as an arthouse reimagining of Oedipus Rex, set in the queer nightclub scene in late ’60s Tokyo. It’s a challenging film, but incredibly beautiful and ahead of its time, and Celeste and I got really personal about how this film resonated with both of us. As we note in the episode, I think this is one you can (and probably should) listen to if you’ve never seen the film, as it provides a lot of potentially helpful context. I’ve been wanting to record with Celeste for awhile and can’t recommend their work enough. If you aren’t already following them, please check out more of their work on YouTube and Patreon, and give them a follow on Instagram and Letterboxd. Thanks as always to Cinepunx and since this is a brand new show and it needs all the help it can get, please rate, review, follow, and share!