Rashōmon

It must have been in the reviews of kamal hassan's "virumandi" that i first stumbled upon this movie name. Eversince i have been wondering how an obsure , old japanese movie can kindle so much interest worldwide. Naturally i wanted to watch it for a long time now. I could lay my hands on the DVD only y'day. Since then i have watched it twice in the span of 8 hours.

The plot is similar to a typical whodunit mystery movie but the treatment is what makes it so different. A samurai escorts his beautiful wife through a jungle. A bandit enamored by her beauty rapes her. Later a woodcutter finds the dead body of the samurai. The woodcutter , a priest , the bandit , the beautiful wife , the dead samurai recount the events in their perspective. All their views are in contradiction with each other leaving the audience to find their own explanation for the murder.

The movie so much reminded me of Agatha christie's "Murder of Roger Ackroyd" novel. But unlike the author of that novel who stresses on logical congruity of the plot , here the director wants us to appreciate the emotional aspects of the plot. The director also intentionally hides some of the vital clues which would pin point the murderer. Only the mystery of the missing dagger is explained by the shocked reaction of the woodcutter when the spirit of the dead samurai recounts its story in front of the magistrate. Apart from that , the movie mainly focuses on the ambivalence of a situation and relative nature of reality as seen as different persons.

The movie also displays excellent cinematography for its age and some amazing cross cuts. It is said that the film employs a great deal of symbolism for expressing itself . Rain symbolizing the murky nature of ways of humans is a good example. Seems that Kurosawa tinted the rain by pouring black ink into the tank of the rain machine to get the desired effect with his cameras. Many such interesting trivias about the movie are listed here .

The film is based on two short stories by Akutagawa Ryunosuke. The translation for those stories can be found here. Have earmarked it for leisure reading. Suddenly i want to see more Rashomon effect movies like Antha naal , Basic etc.