Source - Posteritati
Introduction
Movie’s Name - Rashomon (1950)
Director’s Name - Akira Kurosawa
Genre - Drama, Crime, Psychological Thriller
Language - Japanese
Synopsis
‘Rashomon’ by Akira Kurosawa is an action packed film which beautifully portrays the philosophy of justice. Kurosawa, using his intellect, describes the complexities of human nature through 4 characters, the woodcutter, the samurai, the wife and the bandit.
Four of these characters are expected to describe a situation where the samurai is killed and his wife is raped. The story told by each character somehow differs and it reveals the complication behind the characters’ nature.
Who’s version of the story holds the truth? Watch the movie to find out!
About the Director
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| Source - Daily Sabah |
Akira Kurosawa (born March 23, 1910, Tokyo, Japan—died September 6, 1998, Tokyo) was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, and producer who directed 30 films in a career spanning fifty-seven years. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential film-makers in the history of cinema.
Some of his masterpieces are Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), Kagemusha (1980), and Ran (1985).
About the Story
Rashomon is a film about 4 people namely the bandit, the samurai, the wife and the woodcutter who recount the incident of the samurai’s murder and his wife’s assault. The beauty of this film is to project to the audience the complexities of human nature. Four of them describe the same incident but each one is different compared to the others.
The movie starts with a woodcutter and a priest sitting beneath the gate of Rashomon to protect themselves from the rain. Soon a commoner joins them and the woodcutter starts telling him the story of the murder.
The woodcutter mentions that he saw the samurai being murdered in the jungle and the priest confirms seeing the samurai head towards the forest with his wife.
The priest and the woodcutter were called to the court to act as witnesses. Soon, the police arrived with a bandit who had confessed to the murder. Then, the court asks for all the participants’ description of the situation.
The movie shows us the bandit’s story first. The bandit agrees to hunt down the samurai through one of his tricks and later ties him up to a tree and moves on to fetch for his wife.
The wife tried her best to prevent herself using a small dagger but eventually the bandit won over her. The bandit claimed that what he did to her was mere ‘seduction’.
The wife drowned in shame asks the bandit to fight her husband in a duel to death so that she does not have to carry the guilt and can avoid the presence of two men witnessing her dishonor. The bandit achieved victory in the battle and claimed that he did not murder the samurai but won an honorable fight instead.
During the fight the wife ran away into the woods. When asked about the expensive dagger left behind, the bandit claimed that he forgot about it and regrets not stealing it.
Then the movie tells us about the wife’s perspective. In the courthouse the wife says that whatever the bandit did was no just seduction but rather rape. She claims that after raping her the bandit just escaped. She went up to her husband and cried and begged for forgiveness but the samurai could not look at her as he was disgusted.
After releasing the samurai from the tree, she begs him to kill her so that she can escape the guilt. But all she got back was silence from him. This made her faint. After coming back to consciousness she notices that her husband is laying dead with the dagger stuffed in his chest.
The dead samurai’s tale was also heard through a medium which let the spirit of the samurai give his testimony. He stated that after the bandit raped his wife, he asked her if she was willing to go away with him. The wife agreed and wanted the bandit to kill the samurai so that she does not have to live with the guilt of belonging to two men.
Shocked by her answer, the bandit drags her towards the samurai and asks him whether she gets to live or die. Seeing this act the samurai decides to forgive the bandit. The wife runs away towards the woods as the bandit fails to catch her. The bandit unties the samurai to set him free. The samurai gets up and kills himself with the dagger. He claims that someone later takes away the dagger.
Once everyone’s testimony was over, the movie switches to the scene where the woodcutter is telling the story to the commoner. He then moves on to say that all of their stories describing the situation were a lie as he was himself present there to witness whatever happened. He then tells him the actual incident.
The bandit pleaded with the samurai’s wife for marriage but instead she wanted to set her husband free. The husband did not want to fight a duel with the bandit just for the sake of a spoiled woman like his wife.
After this, the wife breaks down and starts questioning their manhood and eventually she triggers a duel between them. The gruesome duel ends with the bandit winning because of his luck. The wife runs away in terror. Failing to catch her, the bandit goes away, taking the samurai’s sword.
The scene is then followed by a child’s crying coming from behind the gate. We see that a baby has been abandoned by her parents in a basket . The commoner moves on to steal the kimono which was left behind in the basket.
The woodcutter stops him and says how can he steal from an infant. The commoner then silences him by saying that the only reason he kept his silence in the court was because he was the one who stole the dagger. The commoner says that each man is only motivated by his own self interest.
Kurosawa thus creates the Rashomon effect which means the same story can be narrated differently by different people. This is an expression of philosophy which dissects the complexities that us humans have!
Understanding the Philosophy
After watching this movie the viewer might not understand the plot of the movie and the philosophy Kurosawa tries to make us understand. We need to understand that we, as an audience, also play a very important role in this movie.
A film viewer knows that a movie will always speak the truth. We are mere spectators of the film judging the actions occurring in the film. That is how films are supposed to be, eventually we are faced with the truth in the film. However, in Rashomon, we are lied to.
We act as the courtroom audience. Whatever testimony we hear we tend to believe only to know that in the end “All of it is a lie”.
To understand the philosophy even better here’s Kurosawa philosophizing in his 1982 memoir, ‘Something Like an Autobiography’, about the psychological dimension in Rashomon:
“Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. This script portrays such human beings–the kind who cannot survive without lies to make them feel they are better people than they really are…You say that you can’t understand this script at all, but that is because the human heart itself is impossible to understand.”
The Bottom Line
Rashomon is a brilliant piece of artwork talking about human nature and its philosophy. Kurosawa single handedly gave birth to the rashomon effect through this film. This is a movie which is heavily talked about among filmmakers and enthusiasts.
I would definitely recommend the readers to watch this film, as one can really learn a lot from Kurosawa’s storytelling!
My ratings on this movie - 5 on 5
Watch Rashomon on - Youtube
Written By - Subham Sinha
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