A psychological thriller about a bandit, woodcutter, samurai, samurai’s wife, and a priest based in Heian era Japan shocked the world so much that it eventually gave birth to a storytelling technique called the ‘Rashomon effect’. Akira Kurosawa directed Rashomon in the early days of his career before he was hailed as a grandmaster. 

The film opens with five consecutive shots (from a long shot to a close-up) of the Rashomon gate in Kyoto, Japan. Revealing that a samurai has been murdered, his wife has been raped in the woods and a bandit is a suspect. As we move forward in the runtime of the film, we come across one of the most sequences of the whole film, the woodcutter’s journey into the woods. Kazuo Miyagawa’s cinematography and camera movement make this whole sequence so objective for the viewers that despite the film being in black and white the scorching sunlight can be felt poking into the eyes. Kurosawa uses these elements of sunlight and shadow as a metaphor to hint at sin and goods in the film.

The camera movement in Rashomon is something that can’t be perfectly traced or interpreted in the first watch because of the actor’s exaggerated performances. The same is due to Japanese theatre’s high influence in Akira Kurosawa’s work. The costume of the actors and their make-up feels very theatrical. 

A camera is a tool used to film a reality. Akira Kurosawa uses the very same camera to film deception and lies to the extent which leaves his viewers baffled about the fact of what to believe and what not. Rashomon can also be considered a satire on how filmmakers want their audience to believe what they show and here Kurosawa is making them question each and everything they see on the screen.

As we dive into the story we see the bandit, the samurai’s wife, the woodcutter, and the samurai (speaking through a medium) give their testimonies in front of a court about a murder that has happened in the woods. The judge at the court is no one other than the film’s audience. Kurosawa leaves it for the audience to pass judgment and believe in whomsoever they want to. All the testimonies are different from one another, only one fact is constant the samurai has been killed. The bandit narrates the story in such a way that he appears to be powerful, his actions are that of a wild animal as narrates the fate met by the samurai. On the other hand, the samurai makes his wife appear as the sole reason behind his death.

The woodcutter narrates a whole different sequence of events and makes the samurai’s wife appear as a cunning and manipulative woman. Though his account feels genuine as he does not have any personal connection with the people present in the court. But his testimony also stands in the circle of lies when it is revealed that he stole a dagger from the forest and did not mention about to avoid his involvement in the whole incident.

Though the film ends on a positive note, it still leaves the viewers with the question of ‘what to believe and what not to believe’.