Directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Starring Toshirō Mifune and Machiko Kyō.
Starring Toshirō Mifune and Machiko Kyō.
In a Nutshell: A murder and rape is depicted through four conflicting perspectives.
During Rashomon, one character states, “It's human to lie. Most of the time we can't even be honest with ourselves.” An almost verbatim quote from Akira Kurosawa himself, Rashomon is a still powerful film about how we can distort our own reality. Its famous storytelling approach was revolutionary, but beyond gimmickry; Rashomon was the first of its kind to supply conflicting realties and then never arrive at some tidy conclusion while the camera betrays the trust we have to report the truth. The film begins in a rundown gatehouse where a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) and priest recount a horrific incident that occurred one muggy afternoon. A feared bandit (Toshirō Mifune, a bundle of animalistic fury) rapes the wife (Machiko Kyō) of a samurai (Masayuki Mori). That much is fact, but the accounts of the bandit, woman, samurai (through a medium) and woodcutter give their own set of details that alter motivation and who exactly killed the samurai.
During Rashomon, one character states, “It's human to lie. Most of the time we can't even be honest with ourselves.” An almost verbatim quote from Akira Kurosawa himself, Rashomon is a still powerful film about how we can distort our own reality. Its famous storytelling approach was revolutionary, but beyond gimmickry; Rashomon was the first of its kind to supply conflicting realties and then never arrive at some tidy conclusion while the camera betrays the trust we have to report the truth. The film begins in a rundown gatehouse where a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) and priest recount a horrific incident that occurred one muggy afternoon. A feared bandit (Toshirō Mifune, a bundle of animalistic fury) rapes the wife (Machiko Kyō) of a samurai (Masayuki Mori). That much is fact, but the accounts of the bandit, woman, samurai (through a medium) and woodcutter give their own set of details that alter motivation and who exactly killed the samurai.
But the actual chronology of events is not the objective, something too many Rashomon derivatives invest too much importance in. Instead, Rashomon tells us that no man can ever obtain absolute truth. Each participant in the crime tries to twist the events based on their own guilt and delusions. For example, with Mifune’s samurai, we can easily see how each version still has the same person even as he tries to present himself in a nobler light. The samurai and his wife are more fluid and can come off as weak-willed, victims, or brave depending on who is telling the story. Only the woodcutter acts as an outside witness, but his uncertainty does not make his version any more reputable.
Rashomon is not only a terrific advancement in storytelling, but beautiful on a technical level. The woods are rendered in crisp black and white, the midday heat radiating off the screen. Meanwhile the sparseness of the courtroom and gatehouse convey the deceiving simplicity of Rashomon’s tale against the character’s distortions. That Kurosawa never resolves the crime does not infuriate, but brings new facets of the characters upon each viewing. To add a solid conclusion would undermine the film’s purpose to study how we report the truth. Rashomon distinct mark in film has inspired many like-minded works, but its intensity and fascination will never be duplicated.
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