Akira Kurosawa’s influential black and white 1950 film “Rashomon” is being re-released. This is a film thoughtfully poised between visual, rational and emotional provocation while exploring the immense strain of understanding man’s lies and brutal acts.
Set in feudal Japan, the opening scene emphasizes the sleek beauty and bewildering power of an unrelenting downpour of rain. Two men, a woodcutter and a priest take refuge in the abandoned gatehouse called Rashomon. They are wide-eyed and their constitution is faltering because of the atrocities of man. An impartial, callous passerby soon joins them and goads them into sharing the stories that are plaguing them. Their narratives reveal several contradictory eyewitness accounts of murder, rape and theft from the perspectives of a bandit, a samurai, the samurai’s wife and finally, the woodcutter himself.
The various versions of the crime in the forest take the spectator into a visual dimension of dappled sunspots, soft beds of leaves and a hot afternoon in the woods where the truth of what actually happened loses its clarity. Each retelling of the event is chilling. The tangled stories have some consistencies such as rape, murder and theft, but each retelling brings the characters into a sort of poetic dance with one another. This becomes the true subject of the film, while the “true’ story is never discovered. “Rashomon” stands not as a story but as an anti-story with profound connections between its content (stories that weave and reveal gaps and the character’s actual entanglement on the forest floor) and its psychological effects.
Kurosawa’s groundbreaking mashing of linear storytelling into a condensation of human grappling creates a historical new path that many directors have followed. He also incorporates multiple flashbacks and viewpoints as a method for unfolding the story line. However, today the film still holds up as having a refreshingly radical tempo and lack of plot. Meanwhile, the potency of the film lies within the viewer’s psychological reaction to the unraveling of scheme and the unscrambling of such a notion as a reliable narrative or narrator.
In making the opening scene, Kurosawa infused the rain with black ink to render it more visible on film. The downpour thus takes on the visual heaviness of the film’s subject matter, while its visual effect emphasizes the sense that the sky is crying because of the ills of man.
A film about lions in the Savannah was the inspiration for the ferocious yet noble portrayal of the nefarious bandit Tajomaru. Throughout the film, the bandit’s muscles show prominently, covered in beads of sweat. He gnashes his teeth self-righteously and naps languorously beside a tree while swatting at flies, marking his departure from societal norms. Then, he lazily opens an eye to catch a glimpse of the soft wind pulling mosquito netting across the face of a lady on horseback, a goddess-like figure who he suddenly wishes to have his way with. This is the impulse behind the subsequent crimes.
Kurosawa’s direction, inspired by minimalism, results in a film that uniquely breaks away from traditional narratives but saves the viewer from ultimate confusion through visual pause and familiarity.
“Rashomon” will be playing for one week beginning Dec. 18 at Ken Cinema. For showtimes, visit www.landmarktheatres.com. The film’s official Web site is www.janusfilms.com/rashomon/.
Movie: Rashomon
Distributed by: Janus Films and Landmark Theatres
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa, Japan 1950
Release Date: Dec. 18
Grade: A
