Rashomon (1950)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Film Review

Rashomon was the film that introduced Akira Kurosawa and Japanese cinema in general to western audiences in the early 1950s.  For all its apparent simplicity, this would prove to be a landmark piece of cinema which would have a profound and lasting impact on filmmakers across the world, from French New Wave director Alain Resnais to the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas.   A modest production (the budget is estimated to be around 140, 000 dollars) that was intended only for a Japanese market, Rashomon has enjoyed success and longevity way beyond the dreams of its producer and director.

One of the reasons why Rashomon is held in high esteem is because it is credited with introducing the idea of the subjective (and potentially misleading) flashback.  Interestingly (and this is often overlooked), Alfred Hitchcock employed precisely the same device in his film Stage Fright (1950), without having seen Kurosawa's film.  The idea of an unreliable narrator certainly was not a complete novelty.  Agatha Christie created a storm of controversy when she employed the device in her 1926 novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.  Kurosawa was however the first and, arguably, only person to date to use the subjective narrative effectively in a film.  Hitchcock himself admitted that his use of the technique had been a mistake.   Many other film directors have since employed the same device, with varying degrees of success.  These include: Edward Zwick in Courage Under Fire (1996), Yimou Zhang in Hero (2002), Pete Travis in Vantage Point (2008).   Rashomon was itself remade as the western The Outrage (1964) by Martin Ritt, a reworking of a Broadway play (also entitled Rashomon) which starred husband and wife Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom. 

The reason why the subjective flashback works so well in Rashomon is because it is not a stylistic gimmick but is in fact essential to both the plot and the essence of the film.  This is a work which explores the nature of truth, in a bold and provocative manner that challenges our notion of justice.  Four characters are witness to a killing, but their accounts of the same events are wildly different.  We quickly realise that all four witness are distorting the truth to present themselves in the best light.  If no one is capable of telling the truth, how can a court of law arrive at an unbiased verdict?  Indeed, how can justice ever be done if everyone in the courtroom is a liar?  Rashomon presents some unpalatable truths about ourselves, showing that the facility for misrepresenting the truth, either consciously or subconsciously, is fundamental to the human psyche.  To coin a phrase, I fib therefore I am.

Rashomon's recognition as a masterwork of Twentieth Century cinema owes absolutely nothing to its producer, Masaichi Nagata (the head of Daiei, the company that made it), and everything to Giuliana Stramigioli, a humble representative at Italiafilm's office in Japan.  It was Stramigioli who coerced Nagata, against his will, into submitting Rashomon to the Venice Film Festival in 1951.  Nagata was not proud of the film.  In fact he had done his best to discourage Kurosawa from making it and, when he saw it, he dislike it so much that he publicly disowned it.  He did not feel much warmer to the film when it proved to be a commercial hit in Japan.  As it turned out, Rashomon was the most talked about film at Venice that year.  When it won the Golden Lion award, it quickly gained the status as one of the most significant films in years.  RKO stepped in immediately to distribute the film in America (not dubbed, as was their usual practice, but with subtitles), and it enjoyed both critical and commercial success, even winning an Honorary Award at the 1952 Oscars.  By this stage, Nagata had re-evaluated his appreciation of Rashomon and was happily taking all the credit for its success.

The two men who do deserve the lion's share of the credit for Rashomon are its director Akira Kurosawa and cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa.  Together, they craft one of the most mesmerising works in cinema, a potent exploration of human frailty captured on screen with an extraordinary lyrical power and almost blinding lucidity.  The simplicity of the story and the minimalist elegance of the mise-en-scène belie the complex philosophical and psychological themes that underpin this film and which make it so intensely compelling.  This is cinema at its most basic and its most effective - a simple story, simply told, but with the power to seize the spectator's heart and intellect and provoke a deep and meaningful reflection on the very nature of humanity.  Watch this film if you dare - it really will alter your perspective on life.

Film Synopsis

In 11th Century Japan, a woodcutter and a priest are sheltering from a torrential downpour in the ruins of the ancient Rashomon gate.  A commoner appears and provokes the two men into telling him about a recent murder trial.  A bandit named Tajomaru has been arrested for murdering a samurai man and raping his wife in a solitary grove.  At the trial, three quite different accounts of the killing are presented, from the bandit, the wife and the dead man (through a medium).  The bandit claims he slew the samurai honourably in a duel.  The wife confesses she stabbed her husband to death out of shame after the bandit raped her.  The samurai says he committed suicide in reaction to his wife's betrayal.  The woodcutter witnessed the samurai's death and proffers his own version of events.  After the wife was raped by the bandit, she goaded the two men into a duel in which the samurai was killed.  The commoner sees the discrepancies in the woodcutter's account and exposes him as a liar.   Surprised by his own dishonesty, the woodcutter redeems himself by adopting an abandoned child, restoring the priest's faith in mankind.