Rashomon / Rashomon

Director: Akira Kurosawa Performers:

Daiei Production, 1950
88 minutes
From the Ryunosuke Akutagawa short
stories In a Grove and Rashomon
Grand Prix Venice Film Festival
Academy Award for Best Foreign Film
Tajomaru, the bandit (Toshiro Mifune)
Takehiro, the samurai (Masayuki Mori)
Masago, the wife (Machiko Kyo)
Woodcutter (Takashi Shimura)
Priest (Minoru Chiaki)
Commoner (Kichijiro Ueda)

Story

The story opens at Rashomon Gate where a woodcutter, a priest, and a commoner are
seeking shelter from a heavy rain. They are discussing recent events a bandit has
assaulted a samurai s wife and the samurai has been killed. As the film progresses, these
events are repeatedly described from the different perspectives of participants in the
events. The actual events are never shown, only recounted by others.

The woodcutter begins. Initially he says that he happened upon body of the samurai.
Later in the film, he will confess to having seen the entire thing. While seemingly an
impartial witness, his testimony will be called into question.

Both the priest and the woodcutter were present in the prison courtyard where testimony
was presented. They recount the testimony given there to the commoner. The first
testimony is that of the police officer that arrested the bandit. He recounts how the bandit
was captured after being thrown from the samurai s horse. The bandit denies being
thrown from the horse, and makes a full confession to show he is truthful. In his account,
he meets the samurai and his wife on the road. He lures the samurai into the woods with
a story of a treasure, overpowers the samurai, and ties him up. The bandit returns to the
wife and leads her into the woods to where the husband is tied. Although she initially
resists the bandit, he has his way with her as her husband watches. Afterwards, when the
bandit starts to leave, she begs the bandit to deal with her husband. Either the bandit or
the samurai must die so she won t be shamed before both. He frees the husband, fights,
and eventually kills the samurai. The wife, meanwhile, has run off. The bandit takes the
samurai s horse, bow, arrows, and sword but leaves behind the wife s dagger. Forgetting
the dagger is his biggest regret.

Next, the wife testifies. Her testimony describes the events after the assault. The bandit
has abandoned her. She describes her husband as being cold and indifferent toward her.
After untying her husband, she begs that he kill her. She faints and when she recovers,
her husband is dead. Presumably, she has killed him with her dagger. She attempts,
unsuccessfully, to drown herself.

The dead samurai, through a medium, tells his version of the events from the darkness
of the grave. After the assault, the bandit tries to console the wife begging her to come

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with him and become his wife. Tempted, she tells the bandit that he must first kill her
husband. The bandit, outraged, asked the samurai if the wife should be put to death. She
runs off, the bandit frees the husband, and the husband kills himself with the wife s
dagger.

After all the stories are related to the commoner, he confronts the woodcutter. The
woodcutter admits to having seen more that he had previously admitted. His version of
the events follows. After the assault, the bandit attempts to comfort the wife. He wants
her to come with him. Tempted, she says she can t decide. She frees her husband saying
that he and the bandit should fight for her; she will go with the winner. Her husband
initially refused to fight and the bandit loses interest as well. The wife goads the two men
into fighting. After an inept fight, the bandit manages to kill the samurai.

Having heard four versions of the events, the commoner, priest, and woodcutter argue
about what the events mean and who to believe. The commoner discovers a baby
abandoned at Rashomon Gate. He quickly claims the baby s blankets. When challenged
by the woodcutter, he defends his actions and asks about the dagger that was never
recovered and departs. He clearly believes the woodcutter had said nothing of it so he
could keep it for himself. The commoner then departs into the rain with the blankets.
After a while, the rain comes to an end. The woodcutter departs with the child explaining
that he has six of his own. One more won t make a noticeable difference. The priest s
faith in mankind is restored by this act of kindness.

Critique

The overarching theme for this film is the relationship between perception and truth.
While unusual, the basic structure of the film is integral to the story. We are given
multiple contradictory accounts. In Harakiri, the two versions of the story are consistent.
We are supplied additional information in the second telling that provides a different
point of view. Nonetheless, there appears to be a consistent story if only we have all the
information. Unlike Harakiri, in Rashomon, the stories are inconsistent. Often it is
unclear who the narrator is. Moreover, the woodcutter, the only witness, has confessed to
lying so all his testimony is suspect.

Each of the four versions of the story is told to best reflect on the teller. The bandit was
not thrown from the samurai s horse. He was feeling ill and was laying down to rest. He
then continues with a full confession just to show he isn t hiding anything. At the end of
his story, he even speaks highly of the fight the samurai puts up before being killed. We
see a similar pattern in the stories of the wife and the samurai. Each tells a tale that
reflects their individual view of honor. Remarkably, we have three different people
admitting responsibility for the death of the samurai.

The three characters subsequently discussing the events provide three differing
perspectives. The commoner is an irredeemable cynic making statements like Men are
men , that s why they lie and I don t mind a lie, if it is interesting . Yet despite his

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totally bleak outlook, he appears to understand the events more completely than the
others and his off-handed cynical remarks provide a telling explanation of events. After
the bandits story, he remarks They can t tell the truth, even to themselves. After the
wife s story, he says of women They even fool themselves . Yet with the ending, we
are shown where such cynicism leads the casual theft of blankets from an abandoned
infant.

The priest chooses to focus on the good he can find in people. When discussing the
wife s version of events, he finds strength in her story. While the commoner s response
ranges from amusement to indifference, the priest is profoundly affected by events.
Perhaps it is even a crisis of faith for the priest that is only restored by the woodcutter s
final action, the adoption of the child. The final words in the film are the priest remark,
I think I ll be able to keep my faith in men .

The woodcutter is the most enigmatic of the three and the one that seems to struggle the
most with the events. As we discover, the woodcutter has played a role in these events
and is attempting to understand not just the actions of the bandit, the samurai, and the
samurai s wife, but his own motivations and the morality of his own actions. From this
perspective, his taking the child can be seen as an act of contrition.

Kurosawa seems to have felt compelled to give an upbeat ending to an otherwise bleak
view of humanity. Throughout the film, Rashomon Gate is deluged with rain. With
rather transparent symbolism, when the rain ends humanity is redeemed through the
action of the woodcutter.

One last comment, while set in feudal Japan, and while the characters include a samurai,
it is something of a stretch to call this a samurai film. Nonetheless, the characters do
reflect, imperfectly, many of the samurai ideals. The samurai claims he was not defeated;
rather he took his own life. The wife says she begged to be killed and even tried to kill
herself. Clearly, these ideals are defining how each individual wants to be seen.

References

Harakiri. Dir. Masaki Kobayashi. Perfs. Tatsuya Nakadai, Shima Iwashita, Akira
Ishihama, and Yoshio Inaba. VHS. Shochihu Company, 1962.

Galloway, Patrick. Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves. Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley, 2005.

Richie, Donald. The Films of Akira Kurosawa, Third Edition. The University of
California Press, Berkeley, 1996.

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