Rashomon 1950

"I even heard that the demon living here in Rashomon fled in fear of the ferocity of man"

So good, Kurosawa manages to do so much with so little. The framing and camerawork are often incredible, both in the static "courtoom" scenes and in the dynamic forest and medium scenes. The medium and the woman's breakdown in the last version of the story unexpectedly really creeped me out.

You're brought to doubt the reality of what you see on screen, something we usually take for granted. The unseen interrogator, the audience, can keep questioning the characters, but the truth is left for interpretation.

The mood that is set by the opening scene is incredible. It's shot in the pouring rain with a few of the main characters taking shelter in the rubble of the Rashomon city gate. The characters retell the story of a murder that they all witnessed to some extent and they each have a different version of what happened. This plot is interesting but now, seventy years later, just isn't as impactful as it likely was back then. However, it's still intriguing and keeps you guessing.

The most interesting thing about the film for me was the mood and how artistic all of the directorial choices were. It's black and white, but there's so much depth and contrast. It looks amazing.

"Rashomon(羅生門)" is a quite famous gate which existed in ancient Kyoto. It is said the gate was located near current Kyoto station. This film describes egotism of ordinary people. One day, there was a murder and a samurai was killed. Some people including two suspects and two witnesses were brought to the police, and they tried to explain what happened. However, three of them told totally different stories each other. Afterwards, the two witnesses went to Rashomon on the way to home in order to wait until heavy rain stopped, and started discussing this weird experience. They criticise egotism of people and they think there is nobody who we can trust nowadays. The director is "Akira Kurosawa" and this film was one of first Japanese films which won important prize in famous film festivals such as Venice or in American Academy Awards.

Rashomon presents profound contentions of philosophy in exquisitely blocked, effortlessly paced screenplay of a simple story. The fact that Kurosawa makes this amazing feat so painless to acheive is the reason why he's the superlative filmmaker.

A very outdated and un-woke movie. smh
woman portrayed as a sex object, whimpering, helpless, weak and unable to beat a man in a hand to hand fight. so unrealistic.
woman is even forcibly kissed by neanderthal male and then seems to like it. should not be considered consent.
fails bechdel test as there are only two women in the whole film and they never even share a scene.
in fact it's so bad that one of the women has a man speaking through her for her entire screen time.
It gets even worse in the final story as the woman is shown as a slut and the root of all the evil events, though this is slightly redeemed and modernized by having the men bumble about like fools for 5 mins in a pathetic attempt to vie for her love.
no lgbtqi++ characters. shocking oversight.
no PoC apart from some very white-washed 'asian' characters.

i am giving this film a 9, despite all of the above, for two sets of the most stunning and brave eyebrows ever to grace the silver screen.

"Rashomon" is undoubtedly one of the finest films of its time, and despite the relaxed pacing and obvious technical limitations, it still holds pretty well.

It's being remembered as one of the earliest examples of "unreliable narrator" in cinema, but what astonished me was the poetic beauty of Kurosawa's visual storytelling, with each frame being carefully constructed in their apparent simplicity. Credit also goes to Kazuo Miyagawa's photography, made of strong contrasts of black and white that keep entangling and overlapping to suggest the ambiguity of the story.

The plot is taken from Akutagawa's famous short story "In a Grove", and shows how facts can be reconstructed in dramatically different ways depending on the perspective of the eyewitnesses. Kurosawa adds his own ending and moral conclusion to break free from the complete distrust in humanity suggested by Akutagawa's original tale: despite the lies of history and the fallacies of human nature, we have to keep on living, be charitable, and do the best we can. In a way, it almost feels like a modern fable with human characters instead of animals.

Not the most entertaining thing to watch nowadays, but still a visually mesmerizing and technically inspiring film.

The mood that is set by the opening scene is incredible. It's shot in the pouring rain with a few of the main characters taking shelter in the rubble of the Rashomon city gate. The characters retell the story of a murder that they all witnessed to some extent and they each have a different version of what happened. This plot is interesting but now, seventy years later, just isn't as impactful as it likely was back then. However, it's still intriguing and keeps you guessing.

The most interesting thing about the film for me was the mood and how artistic all of the directorial choices were. It's black and white, but there's so much depth and contrast. It looks amazing.

A very important film, and without a doubt one that has had an influence on many directors.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is one of Christopher Nolan’s favourite films, as all of his famous tricks are present here, such as non-linear storytelling, cross-cutting between storylines and unreliable narrators.

As a film, Rashomon does a lot of things right.
The plot, acting, music, editing, cinematography and pacing are all terrific.
The problem lies in the fact that the film seems to be only interested in the idea its exploring (again, much like a Nolan film) and therefore, only tries to engage you on a story level.
The characters, on the other hand, are very thinly drawn.
Extending the film by 10 minutes in order to flesh out the characters would’ve really helped with making the film more engaging on an emotional level.
Also, the way they told the perspective of the husband doesn’t work for me, as it breaks from the serious and dark tone of the film with spiritual nonsense.
However, that might just be me looking at it from a Western perspective.
As Rashomon would say, who’s to say that my perspective is the right one?

7.5/10

And the sun came out.

https://boxd.it/1gNVsB

In 1950 Akira Kurosawa deconstructed cinema and build it new.
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Story: 8/10 | Script: 10/10 | Directing: 10/10 | Acting: 8/10 | Cinematography: 10/10 | Score: 8/10 | SFX/VFX: -- | AudioVisual: 9/10 || Overall: 9/10

Beautifully shot, with the seance scene a particular standout (as well as the rain scenes in the temple.) This is my second viewing, and I was struck by how the movie feels different than what I thought the movie was about. Rather than a meditation on the infallibility of human memory, this viewing felt much more focused on the ability of man to deceive himself and others in order to protect our sense of self. The memories presented aren't distinct in subtle ways--they're fundamentally different in a way that speaks to each person's desperate attempt to cling to a story that must necessarily be false. I'll add that I continue to struggle with Japanese acting styles--I often find them difficult to parse, and I wish I had a book that would help.

Cool concept. I would like to see a modern movie with the same ideas one day. As for this, it’s good, but I struggled to keep my attention during some parts. And I didn’t love some of the acting, the woman in particular.

Well maybe I had too much expectations seeing this movie, but it truly fulfilled none. I get that it's an old movie and for its time it might and must've been a great movie, though for current it just falls flat and just doesn't do anything, bandit character was the same actor and character from Seven Samurai and the main protagonist was the same actor and had all his mannerism from Ikiru. Idea was interesting, but in the end judging from today's perspective it was not done well and isn't thought provoking or as deeply philosophical as everyone seems to think it is. Also won't even mention the horrible sexism. 5/10

"It's human to lie. Most of the time we can't even be honest with ourselves"

Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon is still a fantastic watch and I felt it was even better then the first I watched this 10 years ago or so. Everyone knows the story I believe, we see the same story play out from different views of perspective with a great great epilogue.

Rashomon is certainly a must-watch and one of Kurosawa's best. And it made me want to rewatch Yojimbo and Throne of Blood in the near future and it is certainly time to finally watch some more of his work, especially Seven Samurai. Can't believe I have seen that one yet.

Anyway Rashomon is a import movie in film history, beautifully shot, it teams up Kurosawa and Mifune and it a must-watch.

How with few actors, few sets and a great script and direction, you can make a great movie.

"Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing." - Akira Kurosawa

Taking the above quote from Kurosawa's autobiography into account, we can assume that everything we saw in this film was both true and false. It's a testament to the human soul and how it can warp an individual's perspective as each witness perfectly contradicts one another while simultaneously telling their own personal truth.

The screenplay is nothing short of amazing, perfectly capturing the film's hot tropical setting while the heightened acting brings more emotion to the table than dialogue alone ever could. It's easy to see why this is widely considered a masterpiece.

Bravo.

It reminded me of "The Last Duel" that came out in 2021.

Great movie, amazing visual storytelling, but I don't consider it a masterpiece though.