Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 masterpiece Rashomon, released on DVD as part of the esteemed Criterion Collection, remains one of Japan’s most influential and visually stimulating films. Kurosawa worked closely with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa in creating a stunning display of light, shadows and virtuoso camerawork.
The film depicts three commoners discussing the murder of a traveling man and the rape of his wife which took place in nearby mountains earlier that week. They wait beneath the ruins of a gatehouse called Rashomon for pounding, deafening rain to cease, retelling accounts of the crime as told from a courthouse by the raped woman, the perpetrating bandit and a medium through which the murdered man spoke. Each account is wildly different and contradictory, leading the audience to believe that each story is true and that none of them are true.
The stylistic framing of the courthouse scenes show the characters telling their accounts placed at the foreground and two of the commoners just in the background like a silent jury. The audience plays the role of the interrogator as the characters speak directly to us and we hear none of the questions being asked. The ostentatious Japanese acting-particularly Toshir? Mifune as the bandit-is comical and frightening. He continuously shrieks with murderous laughter in a style atypical of western film, almost as a caricature.
The sturdy yet simple visuals ceaselessly beautify the film-violent rain and heat, thick mountainous forest, the dilapidated gatehouse. The shadows and play of light and dark symbolize good an evil; confusion and reason. In a brief introduction on the DVD, filmmaker Robert Altman calls Kurosawa the first to point his camera at the sun-a reference to a stunning shot of the camera pointing up, moving through the forest; and a nod to the pioneering nature of Kurosawa and Miyagawa’s visual sensibilities.
Roshomon experiments with storytelling methods, but remains entertaining at its core-a captivating story and a gorgeous picture.