Cinema Review - Akira kurasowa’s Rashomon

                  What we taught as truth, may not be the truth – that is the main concept of  Akira kurasowa’s Rashomon.

The movie will ask u the question,” how much truthful we are to our self ? “, leaving the audience to decide the answer.

       A priest and a woodcutter is recounting a story that disturbed them, the murder case of a samurai to a commoner.

The case became mysterious when the 3 witnesses narrated the story differently during the trial.

A bandit named Tajomaru, explains how tactically he defeated the samurai and seduced his wife.

He says that he made a big foolishness by not taking the expensive dagger, which was found in the dead body.

Second story was that of the samurai’s wife. She told that tajomaru raped her in front of her husband and afterwards the cold expression of her husband made her faint.

When she waked up, she saw the daggered deadbody of him.

Third version came from the dead samurai itself, told by the samurai’s spirit through a

After raping the lady, tajomaru requested her to come with him. Then she asked the bandit to kill her husband.

The bandit got shocked by hearing this and instead he freed the samurai and given him the option to kill her.

The lady fled and the bandit ran behind her, while he stabbed himself to death. Later the dagger was removed by someone, he adds.

Filled with agony, the woodcutter reveals the commoner about what actually happened.

The lady made both of them fight and in the end tajomaru killed the samurai. The lady fled in horror.

The woodcutters excuse was he doesn’t want to involve in the case and that’s why he hide the truth.

In the end it is clear that the dagger was taken by the woodcutter.

All these stories will make us believe it by its own mannerisms.

When the bandit emphasizes on his personal motivations and morals, the samurai’s wife is showing her helplessness and the samurai’s spirit is expressing the feel of betrayal.

The  guilty feeling of woodcutter will make us believe his story too.

Here all the witnesses are facing the camera during trial, which symbolically consider the audience as the judge.

Heavy rain hits the rashomon when the movie starts and the rain stops only at the end, symbolizing the conflict inside the woodcutters mind.

The priest is worried about the disasters happening across the place, while the common man is used to all  these issues.

When the story of the crime disturbs others, the commoner is free from all sorts of feelings.

He is frequently mentioning about human nature like “it’s human to lie”,“ all human beings are selfish, otherwise they can’t survive” etc.

The story ends with the priests hope in humanity.

Some of the personal excellence of the movie are Toshiro Mifune’s acting as Tajomaru and  Kazuo Miyagawa’s tracking shots.