Opening Japanese cinema to the world (particularly to the West) upon its release, Rashomon's enduring qualities is most evident in, along its title having been introduced into the English language (as in the Rashomon effect), its theme's strong resonance even after almost 60 years it was released. Narratively simple yet paradoxically complicated, Akira Kurosawa's widely hailed classic deftly examines the unknowable virtue of truth that even the oft-recited mantra "To see is to believe" loses its meaning when thwarted by mankind's ultimate predication to subjectivity and -- perhaps -- psychological egoism. Adapted from two Ryunosuke Akutagawa short stories, Kurosawa's saga concerns itself with an event that transpired in the woods as recounted in wildly differing perspectives three days later at a court trial by the three participants and one supposedly impartial witness as shown in revolutionary flashback sequences. The differing yet equally plausible testimonies are nonetheless bound by one unequivocal truth: a samurai (Masayuki Mori) died in the woods during an encounter with a bandit (Toshiro Mifune) who may or may not have raped the former's wife (Machiko Kyô) and who may or may not have killed the samurai in the process. The bandit claims the samurai's wife yielded willingly to his sexual advances and he killed the samurai in an ensuing duel; the wife swears she was raped and that his husband committed suicide using her dagger; while the samurai's ghost (speaking through a medium) recounts how his wife wanted to go with the bandit and have his husband killed. Compounding the issue is a woodcutter's testimony that radically differs in details from the previous three accounts that to piece together the details from each perspective into one coherent story is an exercise in futility. No matter, since Kurosawa's concern is less in presenting an objective account of what truly transpired than demonstrating the uncertainty of truth, a theme he and cinematographer Kazuo Myagawa often engage in here -- a murky perspective of the world signified by the torrential rain in the opening sequence, the avant-garde direct shot of the sun partially obscured by leaves, the dense forest where the main action takes place, and one character's continuous monologue that he "does not understand". Masterfully buried in ambiguity and anchored by strong performances, Rashomon isn't much about providing a solution as it is a proposal to come up with one's own conclusion based on one's partiality, a masterful artistic depiction of how truth can be flawed.
Review of Rashomon
