NR | 1h 28m | Drama, Crime, Mystery | 1951
Regularly appearing on many critics’ and filmmakers’ all-time Top 10 lists, director Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” had such an indelible imprint on cinema that its title also doubles as an adjective, as in “the Rashomon Effect.”
Not to be confused with the slightly similar “unreliable narrator” storytelling method, the Rashomon effect is when multiple characters recount the same series of events with different, often conflicting details.
The central event depicted in “Rashomon” is the death of Takehiro (Masayuki Mori), a samurai escorting his wife Masako (Machiko Kyo), who is riding sidesaddle on horseback, through a forest near Kyoto, Japan. There is no question that Takehiro is dead, and this is the only fact that four different witnesses agree on.
In a Grove
Based on the 1922 short story “In a Grove” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the screenplay by Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto opens in a dilapidated hotel near the Rashomon gate. It is there that a priest (Minoru Chiaki), a commoner (Kichijiro Ueda), and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) seek temporary refuge during a driving rainstorm.The movie opens with the rattled woodcutter repeating the line, “I don’t understand,” several times, leading the viewer to surmise the central event happened recently. Both agitated and intrigued, the commoner prods the woodcutter to elaborate; the woodcutter accommodates and gives his take on what happened.
The Bandit
This quickly cuts to a scene where a police officer (Daisuke Kato) arrests Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune), a bandit lying near the water’s edge with arrows in his back and the samurai’s horse in the background. The bandit is next shown describing the murder of the samurai and the assault of Masako to an unseen and unheard prosecutor, and does so with unchecked, maniacal glee.
Next up is the recounting by Masako, which is the most contradictory of the lot. The lady flip-flops so many times that virtually none of what she says can be taken at face value.
The last to testify is the dead man himself via a medium (Noriko Honma). She bears a close resemblance to Masako; her account of the events leans heavily into ancient traditional (some may say arcane) Asian mores and traditions, which throws the narrative into completely unexpected territory. It greatly contradicts the previous two eyewitness accounts.
I’ve now seen the movie three times. The first was at a film festival in Washington in the late ‘80s. I do remember that I liked it quite a bit but didn’t think it was the landmark classic many labeled it to be. The second and third times were last week on Criterion Blu-ray, once in subtitled English, the other in dubbed English.
Third Time’s the Charm
During this third screening, I also noted that there is nothing in the movie that doesn’t serve a purpose to the Big Picture. There are hints, not clues as such, why this ninth character was included, and it fits in with everything else in the film. There are no answers; there is no resolution. We never figure out which of the four accounts is the truth or, for that matter, if any of them are the truth. And it doesn’t really matter. This was not Kurosawa’s ultimate point.
“Rashomon” isn’t a whodunit thriller. Instead, it’s an observation of the unreliability of human short-term memory, particularly of the multiple witnesses at a crime scene, who are also possible victims or perpetrators. This flies directly in the face of the blueprint of almost every mystery film made before or since.
So, is “Rashomon” the game-changer so many have claimed it to be? Without a doubt, yes. Has it influenced multiple generations of filmmakers that have studied every frame of it over and over? Again, yes. Will it wow you? This depends on whether or not you have to have full closure when watching a mystery crime thriller.
Just know going in, this movie offers zero closure. It just raises more questions, most of which will never be answered, no matter how badly you might want them.
