Rashomon – A Critical Review

“It’s human nature to lie” – Kichijiro Ueda


Writing the first critical review was a tough decision for me , reason being the fact that it had to be the film that had stirred me the most. Taxi Driver and Raging Bull came close as I relate more to the central characters of these films . There is far great bit of Travis Bickle and Jake la’motta in me than any other movie character that I’ve come across till date but ultimately it was Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon that made the cut . Not only due the fact that it made me a lover of World Cinema but also because it was something that was so original and so flabbergasting that even today after more than 60 years of its making, it still entices anyone who watches it. Even after watching so many movies , i haven't come across anything that can remotely come anywhere near it in terms of the craft of Film-making .
                                   Japanese cinema was little known in the western world until Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1951 as well as receiving an Academy Honorary Award at the 24th Academy Awards. Formerly over looked by the modern thinking western film makers Japanese cinema had now arrived to claim its own place in the history of the art.

"Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves," Kurosawa reflected in his memoir, Something Like an Autobiography. "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."    

Based on two short stories, one which provides the title and literally means ‘the castle gate’, and the other ‘in a grove’ providing the plot line, Rashomon draws you in . The raw emotion of the acting only deepens this cut. The setting, sounds and expressions combine to make everything feel so utterly and powerfully animalistic. Sometimes it’s hard to connect to characters and appreciate their nature, when the language they speak is so alien to your ears that clinging to the subtitles and imagining their dialogue repeated in your mother tongue is all you can do. It took me a long time to do much more than this with French and Spanish cinema, but with Rashômon, my first Japanese film felt scarily authentic.The films is surprisingly simple but yet deceptively complex story, told from multiple perspectives is not only a minimalist masterpiece of visual art but also a philosophical work that could be interpreted on various levels and challenged the very nature of perception itself.

The ‘Rashomon’ was the largest gate in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan… with the decline of Kyoto in the twelfth century, the gate fell into disrepair…”


Perspective , as we know is unique to everyone. Much like snowflakes, no two perspectives are quite the same. During an event, no two individuals are standing in the exact same spot, which impacts their visual perception of the event. The details of the event are captured in a unique manner as well. Each person will observe distinctive pieces of information that others may not. Also the number of details each person can remember is different. Due to the fact that there is a “limit” as to what a person is capable of recalling, as well as the variety of details to which the choose to store and recall, multiple perspectives must be utilized in order to fully comprehend an event.  The difference between perspectives is often difficult to differentiate. The film Rashomon (1950) is widely referred to as the classic example of multiple perspectives and how the observers affect the story by their emic or etic perspective.

The story begins on a rainy day as three men gather under an old ruined gate house identified only by a single sign reading, Rashomon . The movie is set in 11th century Japan, where a priest (Minoru Chiaki), a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura), and a commoner (Kichijiro Ueda) are trapped by a torrential rainstorm in the massive, dilapidated old gate to Kyoto that reads “Rashomon” . The opening line of Rashômon is ‘I don’t understand.’ Nor do I, completely. As they wait out the storm, the first two reflect on a story they have heard that day in court; a story so strange and terrible, says the priest, that "I may finally lose my faith in the human soul."  It feels like the type of film so rich in its complexity that it will take multiple shocking viewings to fully grasp and appreciate everything that happens and to understand just how well it’s made. But even then, everything we are told about Rashômon’s key events comes from witnesses plagued by subjectivity, that all seem to have an incentive to cover up the complete truth. Thus, it is possible that there is no true version of events that we can discover. All we know is what each person involved claims, and why the other stories imply they tweak certain aspects of reality to hide their own wrongdoings, and to preserve their very, very odd, but no doubt 11th century Japanese, versions of dignity and pride. 

A commoner walks in and asks them as to why they appear so glum . As the he breaks wood from the ruins to light a fire he insists and taunts the two men until they tell their story. The two, clearly shaken men then proceed to tell the commoner of a tale most foul. The woodcutter claims that three days ago he found the body of the victim and upon its discovery fled to find the authorities .

The priest holds the pillar of the temple that represents his belief in the morality of mankind..

Only one thing is for certain: a bandit captured and tied up a husband in the forest, made love to his wife, either through rape or seduction, and the husband ended up dead and his dagger missing. Whether they voluntarily dueled in search of the woman’s heart, whether embarrassment obliged them into trying to kill each other, or whether the husband nobly killed himself, is made no clearer to the Samurai tribunal and inquirers than it is to us.Was it rape, or consensual ? Was there a heroic duel, or was it cowardly slapstick? Did the bandit kill the samurai? Did the wife kill him? Did he kill himself?

The story is told in flashback, by the Woodcutter and Priest who share what evidence they discovered and together begin to fear humanity and what people seem capable of.

Lighting is one of the most important aspects of the scene, if not the most important. The use if shadows is a key aspect of the lighting used in this scene. As the sun is shining through the leaves and branches, sunlight is uneven and scattered throughout the ground the woodcutter walks on. While some parts are somewhat filled with a brighter light, other areas are extremely dark. The lighting on the woodcutter himself is extremely uneven. It constantly shifts. While his entire face may be obscured by darkness at certain shots, it may be completely revealed at other times by a clear and bright frontal light. There are also outlines of the shadows of the leaves as they continuously shift on the woodcutter while he is walking.

Miyagawa shoots directly into the sun (then a taboo) and there are shots where the sharply-contrasted shadows of overhead leaves cast a web upon the characters, making them half-disappear into the ground beneath. The unevenness of the lighting on the woodcutter creates a certain complexity in his character, the complexity that is further emphasized later in the plot, when he is revealed to be concealing a lot of what he knows .

The woodcutter's opening journey into the woods is famous as a silent sequence which suggests he is traveling into another realm of reality.


It is also a display to the fact that it can take several perspectives to piece together all of the details of a single event. More to the point, the film uses several people to divulge details of an event, however depending upon their emic or etic point of view, the details must be filtered in order to assemble the whole picture correctly.

The shadows and lights around it that are on him also make him insignificant. This further emphasizes the power the forest has over him, since the forest is a metaphor for the moral ambiguity that is the main subject of the film. The low-key lighting symbolizes the contrasting accounts and morals that occur in the forest. With no clear and consistent lighting, the viewer feels that there is something hidden amongst the forest.

The Samurai’s wife in the white bridal kimono  

The Samurai : the shadows depict the dark fate he is about to meet in the form of death

Kurosawa cleverly brings us to the courtyard where we learn the bandit had been captured on a near by beach because the horse he had stolen from the nobleman threw him from its back. We are now introduced to the bandit in person and witness an unforgettable character. He is wild, out of control and laughs constantly like an insane person.

The Bandit presents his own perspective of the event

As the bandit tells his side of the story Kurosawa makes clever use music to add in a somewhat formalist approach to the unfolding of the tale. As the bandit lies sleeping on the side of a road a Samurai passes by accompanied by his wife sitting on top of a large horse. The music is set to a rhythmical pace almost like a kind of docile marching sound, as the bandit slyly peers through one eye; he sees the woman and decides he must have her. He tricks the Samurai into leaving his wife by the road so he can lead him to a cache of ancient and very valuable swords he has found and hidden in the mountain woodlands. He wrestles the Samurai, overcoming him and ties him to a tree then returns to summon the wife.

The wife finds the Samurai tied up in ropes on reaching the spot . She tries to battle against the Bandit but in vain . Eventually the bandit overpowers her and rapes her . After this the bandit lost his interest in the wife . 

 

As he was about to leave , the samurai’s wife begged him that to be doubly disgraced before two men will be more than her strength to bear . And that after killing the Samurai , he discovered that the woman had ran away taking a fright . He says that he liked her for her temper but at the end she was just like any other woman .

The wife recounting the event , The priest and the woodcutter sitting  .. all in the same frame 

The Samurai’s wife gives her own version by saying that after raping her , the bandit lost interest in her and left her there with her husband.

Instead of sympathizing with her , the Samurai saw her with eyes full of hatred rather than of pity 

Unable to cope with the trauma she lost her consciousness and when she woke up , she discovered the dagger was in her husband’s chest .


   We next hear a completely different side of the story from the Samurai himself, told through a medium. The film shifts tone at this point as the medium adds a rather eerie and disturbing effect to the film. The medium is a woman but yet when she channels the Samurai’s spirit her voice is that of the samurai himself with some added effects to make it seem as if he is indeed speaking from beyond the grave.

This scene is cleverly shot with the Samurai placed in depth at the background of the shot to emphasise his helplessness and isolation from the events. The dead man starts his statement by saying ‘I am in darkness now .. I m suffering in darkness ..Cursed be those who cast this spell of Darkness on me” .

He claims that after she was raped the bandit asked her to travel with him; she agreed but in turn begs the bandit to kill her husband. Honourably the bandit then asks the Samurai if he would like him to kill the woman and that he would never allow a woman of such distaste travel with him. She manages to escape and runs away. The bandit then frees the Samurai and flees himself. So distraught by the horrible events that have happened the Samurai kills himself with his own dagger.

    The story shifts to the present again and the woodcutter is shown to be greatly upset by each account of the incident. It becomes apparent that he had lied to the authorities and was in fact, present through the whole ordeal, watching hidden from behind a nearby bush. He claims that after the bandit raped the woman he begged her to marry him. Saying it was not her decision she ran and freed the Samurai. It was clear that the woman wished the men to duel to the death for her but the Samurai insists that he was unwilling to die for such a woman and he was more upset over the loss of his horse than the loss of his wife. The bandit now seems to lose all interest in the woman and turns to leave with a rather confused look on his face.

The woman continues to weep uncontrollably and tries to follow him but he insists she doesn’t follow him. When the Samurai yells at the woman to stop weeping the bandit tells him to stop bullying her because she is a woman and women can’t help it.

The following few minutes are among the most disturbing of the whole film. The woman breaks out into a fit of ghastly uncontrollable laughter as she taunts both men, questioning their manhood.

She claims that her husband is not a real man because he will not fight for her honour and that the bandit is no better because he is only half heartedly a bandit and lost his interest in an instant. She coaxes the men into a fight but from her expression we clearly see that she regrets this decision as soon as the duel begins. The men engage in a pathetic struggle and Tajomaru wins the battle but it is by no means honourable.

He kills the samurai in cold blood as he is attempting to flee into the bushes. The woman screams in horror at the sight of her husband’s death and flees into the forest. Tajomaru limps away and the scene ends.

These four personal accounts are themselves included in a narrative that contains a plot of its own, not necessarily connected to the central event described in each of the four segments. The complexity of the structure requires a shifting in mode for almost each sequence, which Kurosawa manages to handle without splitting his style into bits and pieces. Throughout, the camera style reflects the filmmaker's unifying sensibility.

Each is the tragic figure in his own version. As the wife recounts her tale, she stresses her predicament and her sensitive response to it: thus, we see her occupying most of the frame. Exactly the same is true of her husband telling about himself in the third version.

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Rashomon, due to the raw and realistic filtration of the natural light, there is a sort of uneasiness that exists due to the nature of the light. This uneasiness is reflected not only from the natural light source but also from the nature of the story and how the story seems to jerk the audience from feeling one way about a character before quickly turning your perspective through a series of actions. In this sense the light aids immensely to the instability of truth that transpires throughout the film. It, paired with the quick cuts, the incessant wailing and or maniacle laughter of the female protagonist, and the close ups and reaction shots manages to create an ideal instable mood that causes the audience to be extremely indecisive regarding which character to have feelings for, which is typically the goal audiences communally share.
              And "the Rashomon Effect" is its contribution to the lexicon. Wikipedia defines the term as "the effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible accounts of it." And the title has remained a part of our language for 50 years because of the film's indelible lesson: There is no objective truth except that which we relate to each other, and often our versions of the truth tell more about us than about what actually happened.

Rashomon forces us to examine how we see ourselves and those around us, as well as the lies which are told in order to hold those perceptions true. It asks us to think about who we are, an unexpected spotlight that shines into the depths of the human soul and our ability to tell the truth. Finally, it forces us to accept that there may not be such a thing as truth at all.

As we are brought yet again back to the gatehouse the woodcutter’s story is (although at an end) interrupted by the sound of a baby crying. The three men search the ruins and find an abandoned baby nearby. The commoner steals the baby’s clothes and a valuable ruby that is protecting it. The woodcutter protests but as he does the commoner demands to know what happened to the Samurai’s expensive knife. When quizzed the woodcutter is stumped for words and the commoner realizes that the woodcutter himself is a thief and that is why he did not come forth to the authorities with his version of the story. The commoner states that all men are selfish and that all men are only looking out for themselves and leaves laughing just like we saw the bandit at the beginning of the film. The priest, disturbed by all the lies and misleading, seems to be losing his faith in humanity, holds onto the baby comforting it as best as he can. When the woodcutter tries to take the child from him he shouts for him to leave as he is upset that the man not only lied but is indeed a thief. When the woodcutter replies that he has six children of his own at home and he is sorry for his mistakes the priest claims that his faith in humanity has been restored and he hands the child over. The men bow and the woodcutter leaves with the baby cradled in his arms. As he leaves with the priest still in view behind him the rain has stopped and he has a smile on his face.  Rashômon tries to give us hope for optimism towards the end, but it knows it is too late. The motive of self-interest and preservation runs fast through the film’s veins, and its power stems from its revelation of this truth, in the midst of so much falsity and deception

In the last frame , as we see him emerging from the temple where they had previously discussed the story , Kurosawa suggests a restoration of moral order through the last frame. The  sunlight symbolizes the moral affirmation underlying the framing story, and it is revealed to us by a moving camera shot that is consistent with those moving shots that have determined the stylistic integrity of Rashomon.