Reviews and notes

FESTIVALS:
1951 Venice
1995 Göteborg
1998 Tokyo, Thesaloniki
1999 Pusan
2008 Moscow, [Restored] Tokyo
2017 [Digitally Restored] Sydney
2018 Beijing
2019 Tokyo


The West was almost entirely ignorant of Japanese cinema before Rashomon screened at Venice in 1951 and won the Golden Lion. Essentially a story about the subjective nature of truth, the film is set in the 11th Century. The source lies in two short stories, ‘Rashomon’ and ‘In the Grove’, written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, who died in 1927; he has been compared to Edgar Allan Poe. In a dark forest, a woman is raped and her husband, a samurai, is murdered by a bandit. Four versions of the story unfold, each point of view offering a different perspective, a different ‘reality’. Through a medium, the dead samurai claims he killed himself, unable to live with dishonour. The bandit insists the sex was consensual and that he killed the samurai in a duel. The film is notable for its adventurous photography, its innovative employment of light and shade, and for the skilled direction of the actors, notably the startlingly physical performance by Toshiro Mifune as the bandit accused of the crimes. Kurosawa had already made a dozen films prior to this extraordinary breakthrough and he deliberately set out to recreate the look and atmosphere of silent cinema.
- Sydney Film Festival, 1951.


The story told by Rashomon is both surprisingly simple and deceptively complex. The central tale, which tells of the rape of a woman (Machiko Kyo) and the murder of a man (Masayuki Mori), possibly by a bandit (Toshiro Mifune), is presented entirely in flashbacks from the perspectives of four narrators. The framing portions of the movie transpire at Kyoto's crumbling Rashomon gate, where several people seek shelter from a pelting rain storm and discuss the recent crime, which has shocked the region. One of the men, a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura), was a witness to the events, and, with the help of a priest (Minoru Chiaki), he puzzles over what really happened, and what such a horrible occurrence says about human nature.

In each of the four versions of the story, the characters are the same, as are many of the details. But much is different, as well. In the first account, that of the bandit, the criminal accepts culpability for the murder but refutes the charge of rape, saying that it was an act of mutual consent. The woman's story affirms that the bandit attacked her, but indicates that she may have been the murderess. The dead man's tale (told through a medium) claims rape and suicide. The only "impartial" witness, the woodcutter, weaves a story that intertwines elements of the other three, leaving the viewer wondering if he truly saw anything at all.

Many people watch Rashomon with the intent of piecing together a picture of what really occurred. However, the accounts are so divergent that such an approach seems doomed to futility. Rashomon isn't about determining a chronology of what happened in the woods. It's not about culpability or innocence. Instead, it focuses on something far more profound and thought-provoking: the inability of any one man to know the truth, no matter how clearly he thinks he sees things. Perspective distorts reality and makes the absolute truth unknowable.

All of the narrators in Rashomon tell compelling and believable stories, but, for a variety of reasons, each of them must be deemed unreliable. It's impossible to determine to what degree their versions are fabrications, and how many discrepancies are the result of legitimate differences in points-of-view. It's said that four witnesses to an accident will all offer different accounts of the same event, but there are things in Rashomon (namely, that each of the three participants names himself or herself as the murderer) that cannot be explained away on this basis. And the impressions of the "impartial" observer further muddy the waters, because, despite his protestations that he doesn't lie, we trust his tale the least.

In the end, we are left recognizing only one thing: that there is no such thing as an objective truth. It is a grail to be sought after, but which will never be found, only approximated. Kurosawa's most brilliant move in Rashomon is never to reveal what really happened. We are left to make our own deductions. Every time I watch the film, I come away with a slightly different opinion of what transpired in the woods. But not knowing remains a source of fascination, not one of frustration, and therein lies Kurosawa's greatest achievement.

It's worth saying something about the style employed by the director. The tone and approach of Rashomon are radically different from anything Western viewers are likely to be familiar with. The film is presented almost as visual poetry, paying a great deal of attention to sights and images while sound and dialogue have lesser importance. The cinematography is singularly evocative. It would be possible to watch Rashomon without subtitles and still capture more than a small fraction of its essence. Likewise, this film could have probably been equally successful during the silent era. Nowhere is this more evident than in one standout, 3 1/2 minute sequence: a kaleidoscope of black-and-white images accompanied only by Fumio Hayasaka's evocative score as the woodcutter makes his way into the woods and discovers the dead body.

As has been true throughout his entire career, Kurosawa draws the best performances out of his actors. As the brash rogue at the center of the controversy, Toshiro Mifune is wonderfully robust. He shades his character differently in each of the four versions, presenting an individual who is unmistakably the same man, yet subtly different. We see the bandit not only as he sees himself, but through the eyes of three others, as well. That's the brilliance of Kurosawa's vision and Mifune's performance. Equally good is Masayuki Mori as the doomed noble. Depending on who is telling the story, he can appear good and noble or cowardly. Once again, the differences serve to emphasize that this is the same person seen from different perspectives.

The most striking portrayal, however, belongs to the radiant Machiko Kyo, whose mesmerizing, seductive character varies the most from narrative to narrative. She can be wholesome, treacherous, sexy, sympathetic, or vicious. Depending on who's painting her portrait, she is a victim, a manipulator, an innocent, or a vixen. At times, she's "like a child trying to be serious"; at others, she's "fierce." As good as Mifune and Mori are, they are constantly upstaged by Kyo. In casting her, an unknown at the time, Kurosawa knew what he was doing.

Today, nearly fifty years after it was made, Rashomon has lost none of its fascination or power. It's still a marvelous piece of cinema that asks unanswerable questions of great import. Films like Courage Under Fire may capture some of the spirit of Rashomon, but no movie before or since has presented these issues in quite the same unique and intense fashion. In every sense of the word, this is a true classic. It's hard to find a more rewarding way to spend ninety minutes.
- James Berardinelli, Reel Views.



RASHOMON has been closely studied and subjected to the rigorous examination that it's stature obviously warrants only by Stanley J Solomon in what remains a little known analysis, The Film Idea (1972). Many will have already seen RASHOMON at least once and to heighten their enjoyment of the film, the major thrust of Solomon's analysis, along with the supporting detail marshalled by him, is available by clicking on the link below.
-Toronto Film Society Notes, 2 March 1981.

Weblink: The Film Idea

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