July 12 – Funeral Parade of Roses (薔薇の葬列 Bara no sôretsu, 1969, dir – Matsumoto Toshio, DOP – Suzuki Tatsuo)
Ficto-documentary hybrid exploring the countercultural queer scene in late 60s Shinjuku – following Eddie, a sex worker in a post-atomic bomb Japan. Eddie is a self-identified high femme “gay boy” embroiled in the battle for control of a Tokyo gay club. Funeral Parade of Roses is experimental in narrative and formal technique and did I mention it’s also a loose adaptation of Oedipus Rex?
Location: A private location in Preston, Melbourne!
Time: Doors at 7:30pm for an 8pm start, 12th July, 2019.
Admission is a set of 1960s false eyelashes.
July 26 – Eros + Massacre (エロス+虐殺 Erosu purasu gyakusatsu 1969, dir – Yoshida Yoshishige, DOP – Motokichi Hasegawa)
Often considered one of the greatest Japanese films of all time, Eros + Massacre looks at the relationship between the past, present and future whilst contemplating how to change the world. Ostensibly a biography of Japanese anarchist Sakae Ōsugi, murdered by the Japanese state in 1923, Yoshida explains: “The fundamental theme is: how to change the world, and what is it that needs to be changed? Reflecting on the present situation through the medium of an era already past, I came to believe that Osugi’s problems continue to be ours… In making this film, I wanted to transform the legend of Osugi by means of the imaginary. Sure enough, Osugi was oppressed by the power of the state in his political activities. But most of all, he spoke of free love, which has the power to destroy the monogamous structure, then the family, and finally the state. And it was this very escalation that the state could not allow.” (Cahiers du Cinéma, 1970).
Eros + Massacre mixes the contemporary settings and aesthetic of its late-Sixties production with the historical and traditional 1920s formalism of its subjects, moving between Kabuki-inspired dialogue to psychedelic-tinged surrealism – often bringing the two together, such as to show Osugi’s lover (and notorious anarchist in her own right), Noe Itō travelling by shinkansen – in 1917.
We will be showing the director’s cut – 3.5 hours – but if millions of people can watch a fucking Avengers movie, I don’t see what you’re complaining about.
Location: A private location in Preston, Melbourne!
Time: Doors at 7:30pm for an 8pm start, 26th July, 2019.
Admission is a verbal commitment to smash the state.