Rashomon: Subjective nature of Truth and Reality

‘Rashomon’ is one of the earliest films coming from an ingenious and one of the most brilliant directors in the history of cinema, Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa is considered to be the supreme and one of the most innovative milestones in the practice of film-making; he is not only an inspiration to Japanese cinema but also a guide to film-makers all over the world. ‘Rashomon’ was his twelfth film, and it was released in 1950. It is a Period Drama, known as Jidaigeki in Japanese. The film has two influences from the short-stories of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. The setting and the title of the film are based on the short-story ‘Rashomon’ and another short-story ‘In a Groove’ provides characters and the plot to the movie.

The movie ‘Rashomon’ marks the entrance of Japanese Cinema on the platform of world cinema. The movie won several international awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (1951), and an Academy Honorary Award at the 24th Academy Awards (1952). Today, the film is being considered as one of the greatest movies ever made in the history of cinema by many critics. But, why this film is considered so important? What is so unique about this film?

The film is important for the presentation of alternative and self-serving view points of the characters that are involved in a murder and rape. In the forest, one incident took place in which a samurai is murdered and his wife was raped. This incident is presented from four different perspectives, namely: The bandit’s story, The wife’s story, The samurai’s story and The woodcutter’s story.

The movie begins at Rashomon city gate where three people: a woodcutter, a priest and a commoner have taken shelter from heavy rain. And the woodcutter starts talking about a peculiar case at the court that he had witnessed. Woodcutter claimed that he had found the body of the murdered Samurai and informed the authorities. Three out of four stories were scrutinized on the basis of a very expensive dagger of the Samurai’s wife which is missing after the incident.  The bandit proudly claimed that he had raped the wife and on her incitement fought and killed the Samurai. The wife said that the Bandit left after raping her, she then freed her husband and asked him to kill her, but instead Samurai committed suicide. The dead samurai claimed, through a medium, that after raping his wife the bandit asked her to go with him on which wife asked bandit to kill him. The bandit got angry on wife and released the samurai and pursued running wife. The samurai committed suicide by his wife’s dagger. But, the last story of woodcutter contradicted all of the above. He said that he witnessed everything. After rape the wife asked the bandit to fight with her husband and win her, while they were fighting the wife ran away, and in the fight the samurai was killed. But, woodcutter’s story did not mention anything about the precious dagger. But, woodcutter did not say anything in the court.

The end puts the movie in a new perspective. At the gate, a baby’s cry interrupted the discussion. The commoner takes the baby and robs kimono and amulet from it. On seeing this and hearing stories, the priest says that he has lost faith in humanity. The woodcutter opposes the commoner, on which the commoner says that everyone behaves driven by self-interest. And tells woodcutter that he is the one who has stolen the dagger and hence he did not appear in front of the court. On woodcutter’s request the priest gives him the baby to take care of it in his house along with his six children. He also tells him that he has restored his faith in humanity. The rain stops and everyone disperses.

The film is important from the perspective of the Concept of The Truth, especially, when truth is media generated. The film doesn’t provide any conclusion and left it on the spectators to decide on their own. We, as a spectator, do not know and learn anything about the authenticity of the said event. We are not even sure whether any such incident has actually taken place. What we are learning and seeing is three people’s discussion. There is a possibility that the woodcutter is simply making up a story to impress the others and priest just adds to it to appear aware about the whereabouts of the place. Such a human attitude is what generates rumors.

If we look at the stories more cautiously, we will realize that all the four stories are driven by the ego of the teller. In each story-teller puts his/her character in superior lights and sees that the story benefits his/her social image. The interpretation of a story, or a text for that matter, depends on its author’s representation of the reality.

If we look closely, there are multiple frames to look at the movie and we can experience the story within the story. For example, for audience the movie ‘Rashomon’ is a story which is authored (directed) by Kurosawa. For Kurosawa, ‘Rashomon’ and ‘In a Groove’ are the stories written by Akutagawa. Then if we go deeper, the entire court-room event is also a story narrated by the woodcutter and the priest. And the entire incident of the forest was narrated by the bandit, the samurai, his wife and the woodcutter. So, if we go by Platonic philosophy, Rashomon’s reality is four times removed from reality itself.

Some critics see the film as a biblical allegory. The Samurai and his wife are Adam and Eve and the Bandit as a Satan. The forest is the Garden of Eden which they’ve lost and now facing the judgment. The heavy rain-fall is compared with the downfall of rain to clean the paradise after the down-fall of Adam and Eve.

Yet another interpretation claims the woman as a culprit. None of the stories denies the rape. Three stories also say that it was woman who led bandit and samurai to fight. The woman is a wife of samurai; she is traditionally given the dagger. But it is not for self-defense. According to this tradition, woman must commit hara-kiri (suicide) if she had to face ‘shameful’ situation. But, here the wife doesn’t kill herself after the act of ‘shame’, that is, the rape by bandit. Swords are constantly shown as a symbol of manliness and Phallus, while woman had Dagger, which is lost.

Many critics read the movie Rashomon as an allegory for Japan’s defeat in Second World War. But the story, ‘In a Groove’, on which the movie is based, was written in 1922. So, its direct association with the World War can be misleading. The Mass-media were used very effectively during the war, and in fact the strong nations were the one which were capable of manipulating Mass-media. We cannot deny the possibility of such a symbolic representation of the use and impact of Mass-media as one of the themes of the movie. The role of visual media in constructing reality is indomitable.  And as a viewer, it becomes important for us to become literate to media narratives.