Film Review: Rashomon (dir. A. Kurosawa, 1950)

This film is justly famous for its dismantling of objective reality. As you probably know, the story is told through flashbacks and secondhand reports of a rape and murder in twelfth century Japan. The story is told from the perspective of the woodcutter, the alleged murderer (played by Toshiro Mifune), the rape victim, and the murder victim (speaking through a medium in what must be one of the creepiest sequences in film history), and then the woodcutter, again, with a second version. The rape victim's and murder victim's stories are further mediated through their court testimony. Each version of the story differs in fundamental ways from the others; indeed, each version essentially identifies a different killer (maybe a stretch for the woodcutter, but the case can be made). An incredibly dark film, Kurosawa the optimist inserts a hopeful ending with the serendipitous discovery of an abandoned baby in the temple, and the breaking of the clouds at the end. The plot defies my descriptive ability, though, as the key question in the film is, can we ever know what really happened?

If you haven't seen this movie, rent it tonite. It's truly a masterpiece.