Rashomon of Akira Kurosava Rashomon, filmed in 1950 by famous Japanese director Akira Kurosava, was the first Japanese movie that attracted widespread international attention and received worldwide recognition. In 1952 it won The Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. The plot of the movie is based on four different perspectives on an incident, which occurred in 11th century in a lonely forest grove: a woman was raped and her husband, a traveling samurai, was killed by a bandit. This tragic episode is described four times with very variable particulars by the characters of the Woman, the Bandit and dead mans Spirit, as direct participants, and the Woodcutter, who happened to be a witness of the tragedy. Definitely, Kurosawa decided to film such a movie, because its complex plot scheme, based on two stories of Ryunosuke Akutagawa, was very unusual and exceptional for those times, and even nowadays it still feels unique and rather extraordinary after more than a half century of intensive development of movie making culture and techniques. The framing object of the movie is Rashmon gate in Kiyoto city, which becomes a shelter for several men, looking for protection form the storm, and who are exploring and discussing the details of the incident occurred in the forest.
The Woodcutter, the Priest and the Commoner try to justify, what happened in the woods that night. An outstanding point is that the movie itself does not offer any easy answer on how the incident really occurred: every each of four characters has own motives and viewpoint, that is why there are four different true stories with lots of various details. So, the spectators have to make up their own minds and choose who exactly can be trusted: one of the victims, or the murderer, or the observer. As it was noticed by numerous reviewers, all the stories seem to be true, but at the same time none of them is really true. It is possible to find out many reasons for all four story-tellers to see and to hear exactly what they did. But there is one factor, which is common for all of them: human pride.
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All of them feel proud as to what they experienced, and eventually they confess only the things they are proud of, secretly or openly. In other words, Kurosawa tries to underline that the way we percept the reality and especially the way we retell the events to the others is always under corrective influence of our own pride. Each of four characters tries to present the story with the most favorable and honorable light for him (or her), though in real situation none of them acted honorably. In addition, when presenting the behavioral outlines of people with pride through moral values of traditional culture, the movie explores those outlines from very modern and up-to-date positions of individualism. Natural desire of people to demonstrate own personality always in favorable light can bring to total self-delusion and self-deceit, and that is why total national pride can be dangerous. It frees the Japanese from the customary idea of faith in loyalty and honor and transfers it into more general concept.
With incredible acting and unforgettable characters, Rashomon is undoubtedly one of the first pictures, which discover the philosophy of justice, human principles and honor. Besides, it investigates inner conflict of an individual when trying to find objective solutions. Using incredible tools of visual metaphors and innuendoes, the director tries to present the idea that truth fully depends on the angle of its telling, and such thing as objective truth simply does not exist. People can lie to protect own dignity and ego. As one of the characters says, people “cant tell the truth, even to themselves.” The main subject of the movie is complex and unstable human nature, moral principles through cultural understanding and individual perception of the same situation by a number of different people. It is obvious that movie belongs very much to its time and especially its culture. Kurosawa comes from Japanese society, with severely patriarchal and honor-bound social traditions, in which the issues of pride, dignity, guilt and shame are the most important as good or bad features.
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Japanese traditional principles take source from religion of Buddhism and Shamanism, where the culture of shame is extremely developed and closely entwisted with the concepts of Sin and Evil, as well as pride is supposed to be one of the worst sins. It is extraordinary, but, as it appears from the Womans interpretation of the incident, for her the point of being raped is not that shocking and dreadful as the feeling of shame that she allowed this to occur in front of her husband. Honor and noble dignity are everything, they are prevalent it all social principles of Japanese culture. It is necessary to mention the style and approach of this work of Kurosawa. In its times the movie was something completely different, especially for the eye of Western spectators: the most of the importance belonged to black-and-white images, sights and long shots, while speech and sounds were pushed to the background. The movie could be associated with famous Japanese poems, visualized by talented artist with his evocative cinematography.
He uses a great amount of illustrative objects, like the baby, the gates, or contrasts of darkness and light, stormy and calm weather, which all are meaningful. Skies and clouds are Kurosawas principle visual tools, symbolizing human pride and helplessness in this cruel world, which he frequently uses in a number of his other works. Though the ending of the movie, the scenes next to the Rashomon gate with miserable walk of the Commoner from the ruins, does not seem very optimistic, there are many hints given by the director, which may symbolize new positive beginnings. First of all, the baby, found by the men under the gates, will be adopted by the Woodcutter, grow up and bring new lives into this world with hopes for better future. Second, the rain, which has been scattering during the movie, stops by its end, symbolizing the way to light. Tragic events may happen, but there are many beautiful things in the world to live for. And the Priest, being amazed by the desire of the Woodcutter to take care about the baby and exclaiming “Now I believe in man! shows that the most important point is not to lose trust and faith in people.
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Bibliography:
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2004 . Scheib, Richard. “Rashomon.” Fantasy Reviews. 1999. 10 Nov. 2004 . Schwartz, Dennis. “Rashomon.” Ozus World Movie Reviews.
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