For years, I have long said when asked my all-time favorite film is Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon. Why? Well, short answer: I have always been interested in the concept of perspective, how a story or an incident can change based on the teller. Most people seem inclined to tell a story that makes them look as good as possible, so why not explore that concept? Factor in as well the very idea that different people just have different levels of knowledge and awareness about things that are happening, and a good storyteller can have a lot of fun playing around with that. Kurosawa just did such a masterful job with Rashomon that there’s a whole concept named for the film: the Rashomon Effect.
Granted, I still need to look up how to spell this one when I need to write it down. I keep wanting to spell it R-O instead of R-A at the start.
But why is this my favorite film? You know, beyond the perspective angle? I think the explanation there is rather simple: Kurosawa, working on what was basically a shoestring budget, put together a film that showcases the same story told four different ways (sort of), making each version to look like it was filmed in a completely different genre, and he pulled it all off while making it look like it had a much bigger budget than it did. In realty, Kurosawa, the cast, and the crew all shared a house while filming, and there’s pretty much only three locations. There’s the forest, which was an actual forest. Then there’s the collapsing city gate where the Woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) and the Priest (Minoru Chiaki) relate what happened to the Commoner (Kichijiro Ueda). And finally, there’s the courtyard where the murder trial is taking place, but you really only see a backwall there. The cast is essentially the four storytellers, the priest, the commoner, a medium, a policeman, and a baby. Yes, there’s a shot here and there of a different location, like the beach where the policeman finds and arrests the bandit Tajōmaru (frequent Kurosawa collaborator Toshiro Mifune), but really, everything that happens in the film was done in ways that stayed within the budget without looking like it did.
But that’s neither here nor there. Like I said above, the thing I like best is the way Kurosawa seems to switch genres as he goes along. Tajōmaru’s story is told through pure bravado, designed to make him look like a clever badass, someone not to be messed with even as he laughs haughtily, shouts insults to those he thinks beneath him, and forever swats and scratches as whatever insects are apparently bothering him. His story is the longest, arguably because his sets up most of the action. The other three take place after he’s had his way with the Wife (Machiko Kyō), meaning it is entirely possible other aspects of his story the other three tales don’t call into question are also less than accurate.
But the Wife’s tale is one of stark sorrow as she recounts the cold look her husband the Samurai (Masayuki Mori) gives her before she passes out, only coming to later to see he died perhaps at his own hand (honestly, there’s a part of me that always thought she might have done it herself in her own story but just couldn’t remember). The Samurai, speaking through the Medium (Noriko Honma), comes across as something of a horror story when looking at the Medium before becoming something more tragic as the man kills himself when the Wife and Tajōmaru have both abandoned him. As for the Woodcutter’s story, once it gets the three other storytellers together, it turns into something like a slapstick comedy, possibly the worst sword fight committed to film–contrasting with the more polished one from Tajōmaru’s story–as the two men are chastised by the Wife into fighting to prove they actually are men and neither of them really wants to.
Now, personally, I’ve always been inclined to think the Woodcutter’s might be the real story, but even his has an inconsistency or two as pointed out by the cynical Commoner. And therein lies the film’s true purpose: it is saying something about human nature, a far more important matter for the film than identifying a murderer. Indeed, Kurosawa related that, while filming, many members of the cast and crew would ask him who the real murderer was only for him to, without fail every time, say that wasn’t what mattered with this story.
Consider if you will how the setting for this film is established even before the murder is even mentioned. We’re told the land has suffered from natural disasters, plagues, bandits, and war for quite some time, to the point where some claim a demon actually fled the city of Rashomon out of fear of humanity. The Woodcutter and the Priest, both witnesses of and at the trial, are in a deep funk because the three stories told at the trial were all blatantly self-serving and couldn’t all be true. The Woodcutter’s own tale, added to the mix later, is not much of a comfort either. The Priest has lost his faith in humanity. Given he never really speaks of any sort of religion that I can recall off the top of my head, that fits. His faith is in humanity, and nothing he has seen has put him in a position to believe there’s anything worth believing in. Tajōmaru wanted to look like a badass murderer. The Wife and the Samurai both wanted to look like victims. The Woodcutter wanted to hide how he seems to have absconded with a dagger with a pearl in the handle. And the Commoner was a massive cynic who believed the worst about everyone, justifying how he was stealing from an abandoned baby because the parents were thoughtless, so why not?
But the film somehow ends on a hopeful note as the Woodcutter decides to take the baby home with him. He already has six children, he explains to the Priest, so one more won’t do much. This gesture of kindness and compassion is what the Priest needs. He needs to know the world isn’t full of people who only look out for themselves, and the Woodcutter had already stood up to the Commoner when the Commoner started to rob the baby of the kimono he was wrapped in for warmth. It’s one small token of sacrifice and goodness, but after everything this world has endured, it’s enough. People can be good. They don’t have to be selfish. And the Priest can breathe easy, knowing that. Maybe a murderer got away. Or maybe not. But an innocent baby was saved by a poor man with few resources. That’s something in the end no matter what your point of view.
NEXT: That was a bit heavy in the end, wasn’t it? Well, nobody’s perfect. And Billy Wilder reminded us all of that in 1959’s Some Like It Hot.
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