My first reader request :)

Akira Kurosawa is a famous movie director from Japan whom I had never heard of until recently talking with my friend Bo. She recommended three of his movies and somehow it became my homework to watch all three and write a review of each. First up, Rashômon!

Rashômon was filmed in 1950 in Kyoto, Japan and won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival that year. It begins with a heavy rainstorm where, under the shelter of Rashômon Gate, a priest and a woodcutter contemplate a trial they were just witnesses for.

Essentially a Sumarai (Takehiro) is dead, his wife (Masako) has been raped, and a bandit (Tajomaru) is accused of the crimes. (note: I will tend to describe the characters by their roles rather than their names to make it easier for us non-Japanese people to follow)

During the trial, each of these three characters explain what happened ...

The samurai begins by confessing to the murder of the samurai and the rape of his wife. As the samurai and his wife were walking along a trail through a forest, the nearby bandit was just napping under a tree. That is, until a cool breeze both woke him up and swayed Masako's veil just enough to reveal a face that the bandit had to have. To the court, the bandit continues to brag about how he tricked the samurai away from the path, defeated him in battle, and left him tied up for his wife to see. The wife insisted that one of them must die, so the bandit untied the samurai for a fair fight to the death. Naturally, he won.

The wife tells a different story however. After the bandit raped her, he left, and she killed her husband because she could not tolerate his looks of disgust. She thought about killing herself, but she was not strong enough.

Now the dead samurai, through a 'medium' with funky eyebrows, tells his version of the events. After the bandit raped his wife, she was quick to run off with him, but not before insisting that the bandit should kill her husband. Both men are shocked by this that they become buddies. The bandit tosses the wife to the ground and asks the samurai if he wants him to kill her. The samurai says to let her go and ends up committing suicide out of shame.

So far each participant tells a very different story and the story teller turns out to be the murderer. I think it is a very weird aspect of human nature that (in a warped view that somehow makes weird sense) taking the life of another is viewed upon as being honourable. As the movie viewer trying to make sense of what is going on, the story gets even more complicated. It turns out that the woodcutter actually saw everything, not just the dead body (which hurts his credibility). Basically, it is a mix of all three stories with the bandit murdering the samurai in a duel. But is this true? We are not led to believe so. In the last scene, it seems like the woodcutter and priest are talking to the viewer, not each other. We hear:

"Just think, now. Which of these stories do you believe?"
"This doesn't make sense."
"All men are selfish and dishonest. They all have excuses."

Suddenly, a crying baby brings in a new twist, but it doesn't help explain why at least 3 of the 4 stories were fabricated, or who may have been telling the truth. The woodcutter walks away from Rashômon Gate with the baby. The movie ends.

WTF?!

I watched the movie again to see if the director left us subtle clues and it didn't take long for one to appear. The very first line of the movie is: "I just don't understand it." Oh Kurosawa, you are one clever dude and were way ahead of your time! The 'it' is the whole movie, and we were not meant to understand what really happened. This movie is about how we all act according to our own self-interests, and how any conflict can be summarized by the expression: There are two sides to every story, and then there is the truth.

Brilliant.

To me, this movie is like what 'Hey Jude' is to 'Yakety Yak', 'Super Mario Bros' is to any Atari game, 'Ten' is to 'Cherry Pie', and 'Reservoir Dogs' is to 'Prince of Thieves'. Each of these were such a huge leap forward from what was considered great shortly before, that it is astonishing to think about how these ground-breakers ever got to be made.

Sure, great stories have been told as early as the Odyssey, but in the relatively new world of film in the 50's, this piece is timeless.