Rashomon (Rashomon (DVD))

Member Name: Barkers101

Product:	Rashomon (DVD)
Date:	08/08/09 (6 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Kurosawa, Mifune, Samurai, Influential

Disadvantages: None

Synopsis: A murder happens, but nobody can get their story straight.

This Kurosawa is one which many critics consider his finest work, and it is not hard to see why considering the influence it has had on films since, including personal favourites such as Hero and the Usual Suspects. This film was one of the first to tell a tale from different perspectives of the characters involved, it introduced new ideas for cinema, such as involving audience opinion and interpretation that made the film all the more enjoyable, especially with the finale. Of course, being that the greatest director to ever live made this film you can expect it to be an instant masterpiece of style and substance that can match any film made since.

Plotted with competing points of view from the three characters involved in a flashback style. Matched with fluid moving cameras and dappled lighting Rashomon creates all the effects for an effective yet unrealiable group of views. The whole sense of illusion and mistrust is apparent in all 4 versions that are submitted to the audience as evidence - cleverly you never actually see the judge or members of the court so instead it is almost like the suspects are addressing you. Overall the whole story, characters and events become unbelievable and untrustworthy to the point where the truth is so muddled and incoherent that it becomes the topic of the film itself, along with the nature of man as a race. Despite this, and the nightmarish tangle of lies and deceit ultimately as with many of Kurosawa's films the conclusion is that of good moral and human kindness. Rather than showing the fact that without truth we lose the possibility of renewal and redemption Kurosawa instead decides to show that truth can be found in simple acts of kindness and sacrifice, the kind that shows a poor peasant taking on a child that his homeless despite his lack of basic living resources - this act of kindness balances out the wrong and lies that we have seen before and shows that despite all the deceit, humans are still capable of kindness and goodness.

The whole film is shot in an exceptional way, and to me one his best directions of any film he has made. The way each story is portrayed in a self-serving manner that shoes each character in the light they want to be perceived is extremely well done, with each small detail attended too - especially by the actors, the way Toshiro Mifune completely changes his whole persona in the different stories is incredible! he is ultimately convincing as the rugged and ruthless villain and just as the coward with a false bravado. Each perspective is a contradiction on the other which makes the whole story become a complete jumble of lies and false visions. The different perspectives give an insight into just how confusing and deceitful lying can be and how it never achieves its purpose. The woodcutters perspective ultimately rules out any of the previous visions as being correct, instead, they seem to be the complete opposite and yet even his motives are in fact lies. This bleak tale of human morality can sometimes be a disturbing and sadly correct which makes it all the more important to understand, it shows the level of morality that man and woman can sometimes stoop to.

Despite all this, as i have said, Kurosawa ends on a high, an abandoned baby is discovered and the woodcutter decides to care for its life in order to receive redemption for lying, displaying acts of human kindness that are more meaningful and important than the truth in a petty story. A good, consistent conclusion that allows viewers to not feel too bad for themselves, but also one that will hopefully envoke some kind of revival in each person. Rashomon remains as one of Kurosawa's first masterpieces and one that will go on influencing films and hopefully directors.

Summary: Film