Rashomon

I really thoroughly enjoyed this film and found myself rewatching some of the scenes back because I enjoyed them so much. I think there are many reasons as to why this film was so well embraced and enjoyed by Western audiences for reasons within the cinematography and narrative style. What I thought to be the most notable reason for the film being popular in the West is due to its narrative. The style is not set on one specific person but rather switching from character to character as the different stories get told. A prime example of this is when we see Tajomaru start to tell his side of the story with the murder in which he looks up to the sky with the camera then panning to the clouds he is looking at. This is a clear indication that the perspective is shifting to him, allowing a sense of freedom almost in exploring the characters and their stories. Another aspect of the narrative that I found to be engaging and possibly intriguing to the West is how the interviewer or police investigator is not heard or pictured at any point during the interrogation. This is an interesting point when compared to the scenes of the camera in the footage behind trees following the characters. This cinematography style really made it feel like I was the one being told the story in real time and that I was the one witnessing the true events. I also think just from my experience with modern Western movies– Westerners really enjoy a callback, which is what is done in this film. We get snippets of the story told then the scene cuts back to the same three men at the fire pit telling the story we had just watched. All of these elements added together make it really easy to see how this was perceived so well by Westerners.  As I was watching the movie, I felt like the dialogue was all very similar to Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s 1922 “In a Grove”, yet the characters, specifically Tajomaru, were depicted relatively differently. In the reading, Tajomaru seemed to be more calm yet still crazy in a more unsettling way rather than a hysterical way, which is how Tajomaru was depicted in the film. I thought this was an interesting difference and I am not sure which I felt matched better with the story. Another part of the movie that I found interesting when compared to the reading was the additional parts where the wife starts to stand up for herself and calls out Tajomaru and her husband. I think that this was a very interesting part of the story that was missing from the reading and I felt that it added a lot more emotion to the wife’s story and the death of the husband as well.  To conclude, I think this story serves a very valuable lesson in that there will always be complex reasons, whether they are motivated by selfishness or kindness, that not everyone can comprehend. I also found it really intriguing that the film starts with the introduction of the murder and ends with a new life. Everything is cyclical and nothing makes sense!