“Rashomon” (1950, directed by Akira Kurosawa)
Really great art often comments on its own medium. This must be done adroitly of course, because typically you don’t want to violate the fourth wall, but if an author can perceive some truth about the world that is exemplified in his/her relationship with his/her audience, he/she would be foolish not to explore it. Cinema, being a primarily visual medium designed for a primarily visual audience, is so powerful it’s almost manipulative, and so it is uniquely able to self-critique. As we will see later on this list, notions of voyeurism, free will, and perception of reality are all easily toyed with in a movie theater. Many films have encountered these topics, but perhaps Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” is the only one to really drive them home. A masterful and unorthodox drama, “Rashomon” is concerned with the nature of the truth. What begins as a simple criminal investigation becomes a forced self-reflection for the viewer: when and how do I know something?
The set-up is straightforward: a young couple are traveling through the woods in feudal Japan, when a bandit happens upon them. What happens next is unclear, all that can be certain is that the man is killed while the woman and the bandit survive. The involved parties are all brought in for trial (including, in an eerie and wonderful scene, the ghost of the fallen man), and each recounts a vastly different story of what happened. The physical evidence restricts each narrative to a pretty narrow margin, and yet within that space, a wide assortment of possibilities unfold. In one version, the bandit is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and is cruelly manipulated by a Lady Macbeth-style wife; in another, the wife is used up and discarded by both men in a cold display of sexism. Meanwhile, a group of peasants debate over the proceedings, standing in for the audience as they wonder aloud which version is the truth.
The magic of “Rashomon” is its incredible perceptiveness concerning human nature. The thesis of the film should not be mistaken as relativistic, in fact it’s quite the opposite: “Rashomon” operates on the assumption that there is a truth, but the human mind won’t let you get to it. At first, the viewer attempts to suss out which of the characters is lying, but soon the line between deceit and self-delusion gets muddy, and we realize that these three self-interested parties have lost sight of the truth like a boat loses sight of the shore. We have all experienced hearing a story we cannot believe, but “Rashomon” expands that everyday situation to its worst possible form, revealing the grim truth that the human mind’s perception of reality is all too easily bent. Lies are a poison that infect not only their victims, but their authors as well.
The only debatable aspect of “Rashomon” is the peasants, who function to do two things I’m not certain I like. Firstly, they provide us a “true version,” as dictated by an eyewitness with no particular stake in the events. On the one hand, this is clearly Kurosawa coming out in favor of the existence of absolute truth, and I certainly support that. Still, there’s something indelicate about it, perhaps because such a simple resolution is so rare in these situation in real life. Secondly, and as a side effect of that, the peasants also wrap the story up on a high note, and this I definitely feel to be a misstep. While I sympathize with Kurosawa’s desire to redeem the human race with a show of selfless devotion, the silver lining placed on the events doesn’t feel earned, and symbolically it represents a freedom from subjectivity that simply does not exist. Again, a more nuanced version of the same thing would have gone a long way.
Still, neither of these flaws kept me from including “Rashomon” where I did, because a) flaws though they are, they serve to endorse a view of humanity I agree with, and b) they are all piled up at the tail end of the movie, which makes them easier to compartmentalize and deal with. Besides, it’s hard to be too angry at a happy ending, even if it rings a little false. Kurosawa’s stunning indictment of human nature remains a powerful cautionary tale against letting personal motives obscure your view of reality. The truth, Kurosawa seems to be saying, is fragile in the human mind, and all too easily discarded. We must be on our guard at all times to cling to it, lest it slip away from us and leave us out in the dark.
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