In all honesty, my initial reaction towards the film Rashomon was that it was poor quality, old and didn’t make any sense! Unfortunately that fate was dented the moment I knew it had been made in the 1950s. But, once I managed to see past that, I began to realise why Rashomon was so brilliant for it’s time. In fact this film was very important, because it was the first really cultural film to hit Western societies, so it was responsible for bridging the gap. When it received positive responses in the West, Japanese critics were baffled; some decided that it was only admired there because it was "exotic," others that it succeeded because it was more "Western" than most Japanese films.
The plot is about a one event, seen in many different lights by four witnesses. The stories are mutually contradictory, leaving the viewer to determine which, if any, are the truth. The story unfolds in flashback as the four characters—the bandit Tajōmaru (Toshirō Mifune), the samurai's wife (Machiko Kyō), the murdered samurai (Masayuki Mori), and the nameless woodcutter (Takashi Shimura)—recount the events of one afternoon in a grove. Perhaps, one of the most frustrating things about this film, apart from the terrible acting of Machiko Kyō is that you never know what was the real story is; and you can never know.
I like the symbolism used in the film, prominently with light. Lighting was very important to get just right, to show how the truth is sometimes trapped and unable to get through. For example, when we see many shots looking up to the tree where the sun cannot quite escape through the leaves. Tadao Sato suggests that the film (unusually) uses sunlight to symbolize evil and sin in the film, arguing that the wife gives in to the bandit's desires when she sees the sun. But I think the light mainly represents truth and good. I think that the light finds her face when she realizes the truth of her seduction by the Tajōmaru.
Women are definitely shown as weak and emotional in Rashomon. Certainly the actress portrays the female character as uncharacteristically vulnerable and powerless towards men. She is easily seduced by the Bandit in the first story, then in her own story she said that she attempted to kill herself because of her feelings of guilt (but unfortunately she did not succeed in that). Then in the dead Samurai’s story, she fled from the scene in an emotional wreck (as always). And in the woodcutter’s story, she also fled. So overall she presents the defenseless image of a woman who cannot survive without a man. It is almost like a modern Western woman of the 1950’s, and seeming as though this image fitted with the ideas of Western societies at this time, you can see why it was so well received.
The men in the story are presented as much more powerful, with ownership over women. They always end up engaging in a great battle with one another, which is always over the woman.
In all I think, good film of it’s time… Although frustrating in parts.
