Rashomon

1950 "The husband, the wife… or the bandit?"
8.2| 1h28m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 26 December 1950 Released
Producted By: Daiei Film
Country: Japan
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, "Rashomon" is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

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Reviews

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
aggelostenshimanga Rashomon is one of the most well known movies of Japanese cinema, and for good reason. The unconventional yet exceptional cinematography conveys the simple tale in a very effective way. But for me the most important part is what that tale can teach us.One can think about what Rashomon's message really is for a long time, and keep coming up with new ideas, and most likely one of them will resonate with some people more than it will with others. The lessons i feel Rashomon strongly emphasizes are the fact that each person thinks of their profit, and will do many things to protect what they value the most and/or gain something more, and the fact that truth told by a single person is never the actual truth.That is achieved through the characters retelling what happened between the three of them in the forest, each spinning a new tale that makes them look as the most noble, strong, or innocent, trying to earn sympathy or not lose the pride they have, as previously stated, valuing their own gain more than telling the truth. Through the same points of view, it becomes clear that no single narrator is reliable, because even if you are willing to tell the truth, small exaggerations, omissions, lies, will most likely show up, especially if you were involved in the story you are retelling.A stunning movie that everyone should watch at least once in their lifetime.
TheNabOwnzz The main reason Rashomon is such a classic is due to it ( much like Citizen Kane ) being one of the first movies to use a non linear way of storytelling, using flashbacks in order to tell a story from different subjective perspectives. Which results in a fascinating storytelling experience.It is also an effective tale about the human nature to lie, and about the human nature of selfishness, as all of the stories in the movie differ in a way that favors the one telling it. No character is truly likeable, but that's the way Kurosawa wanted it to be. They do not have to be likeable as long as they are well developed, and that it is. The characters are telling the story to an unseen Judge behind the camera, basically telling it to the audience themselves. There are no definite answers, as it all comes down to the human nature to lie. There is minimal dialogue as Kurosawa understood the beautiful cinematography and the faces could speak for themselves. It is both an effective visual and psychological experience.One of the couple of gripes, however, is a couple of overacting sequences, ridiculous hysterical yelling that seemingly comes out of nowhere ( Especially by everyone's favorite Toshiro Mifune, who in all other ways, was brilliant ), and the relatively short running time.However, all in all it makes Rashomon an effective and revolutionary movie due to its non linear concept, and is definitely up there as another one of Kurosawa's masterpieces in his extraordinary career.
m_mehdi_m62 This movie trying to show truth is relative. There is an incident occurred and there were some witnesses of that incident, each narrate the story from their point of views. The outcome the story is identical however each narrator saw it differently.One of the interesting part of the movie there is no interrogator shows in the movie. The questions are repeated by the witnesses and answered accordingly to keep the story intact from the interrogator's characteristic.I categorized this movie under philosophical genera. It shed light on human being nature and how they think and interpret their surround. The human nature is to look for truth and yet they alter the fact to be able to leave with it in a way or another.
Anssi Vartiainen Based on a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Rashomon is one of Akira Kurosawa's biggest films and the breakthrough film that brought him and Japanese cinema in general to Western audiences. A tale about a murder and the various lies we tell each other to make sense of our existence.The film is about a murder trial. A nefarious bandit, Tajômaru (Toshirô Mifune), is accused of murdering a travelling samurai in front of his wife. We hear four different versions of the events that took place. One from each of the three and one from a bystander. Each tale differs from one another and in the end it's left for the viewer to decide who to believe.Rashomon is a clever tale and full of depths, but it also shows that Kurosawa was still travelling towards his prime. The acting is a bit overplayed in certain scenes. Mifune especially overacts constantly, which in some ways fits the character, but is still a bit jarring. The score is also surprisingly distracting. That being said, the camera-work is beautiful, the storytelling works very well and even the framing story about people hiding from the rain and talking about the trial is not as bad as it could be.And it's simply a fascinating story on thematic level. It's made clear very early that all the witnesses lie to make themselves look better. They all try to shift the blame, to make their own accord seem dignified or born out of necessity. Even the final story by the bystander has undercurrents that make it seem not as objective as it should. So who to believe?In the end the film provides no answers. Rather it asks us to wonder how common this sort of behaviour is in everyday life. Do we shape our subjective realities by telling stories? And if we do so, do we also allow the stories of others to have an affect on what we believe to be true, to be reality?It's up to you to decide. But first you have to ask the question in the first place.