Bara no sôretsu (1969) aka Funeral Parade of Roses

Even though it is over four decades old, Funeral Parade of Roses, a kind of queer Oedipus Rex set in the world of drag queens, is just as, perhaps even more radical today than it was in 1969. There is a moment early on in the film in which the director asks a gay man why he is gay, and the man just answers, "I was born this way." Today, in a world where Lady Gaga has successfully commercialized this phrase for the benefit of her corporate overlords, it is easy to forget how cutting-edge this notion was, and really still is to the world. Toshio Matsumoto delves into an underground world of sex, drugs, murder, and deprivation, but this is not some finger-wagging morality tale, but rather a portrait of lost people longing for companionship and understanding. It is also a sublime audiovisual phantasmagoria, featuring some of the most crisp and indelible black and white images set to film. Matsumoto's psychedelic, and surely seizure-inducing montage sequences hold a weird and breathtaking power. His Tokyo is a cold and clinical city, dominated by urban brutalist architecture and sapped so completely of any kind of life or warmth, it is easy to see why everyone is off the edge. And then there is the star of the film, Peter, one of Japan's most famous gender-bending actors, who is the hypnotic center of the film. Oozing sensuality and sex appeal, his portrayal of Eddy is something that words cannot describe. Eddy made me weak in the knees, and the knowledge that this was a man playing a woman playing a man who plays a woman only increased the animal magnetism. Funeral Parade of Roses is probably most famous, though, for being a key influence on Kubrick when he made A Clockwork Orange, but unlike Kubrick, Matsumoto is avant-garde through and through, and incorporates all manner of theatrical and cinematic elements into this work. Simply put, this is one of the most fascinating and exotic films to come out of the Japanese New Wave, and still retains a shocking and transgressive modernity that will not be lost on contemporary audiences.