The century before the release of Rashomon was probably the most transformative period of Japanese history, within a hundred years their feudalist shogunate was dismantled and reformed into an organised xenophobic empire and its army. The new empire’s lust for economic growth spurred conflicts in China and Manchuria, leading to a colossal ego among state heads after several impressive campaign victories, making Japan the superpower of Asia. After a 4 year war in the pacific theatre ending in a horrific series of attacks on the civilian populace, Japan found itself changing again. The introduction of western influence into what was previously a closed country was suppressing identity, heritage, and customs, blurring the political and cultural lines of society across generations of people. Akira Kurosawa became the face of Japanese cinema during this time period. Many consider his rise to stardom the golden age of media development in Japan. Having been influenced heavily by western media, his style of filmmaking was so different from his peers of the time that the government wanted his twelfth film, Rashomon, withdrawn from the Venice film festival. His overnight international acclaim was a surprise even to himself. Sam Francis wrote, “the enduring legacy is not that Kurosawa’s works are amongst the best of Japanese cinema, it is instead that Kurosawa’s works are Japanese cinema.” Despite indifference from his own country at the time. Overseas audiences fell in love with the honesty, beauty, and energy that Kurosawa used to depict his historical fiction.
Before the release of ‘Gojira’ would address the devastation of the nuclear attacks, an unknown Akira Kurosawa directed his adaptation of ‘in a grove’ by Ryunosuke Akutagawa that would transcend national identity and question the nature of truth and selfishness. This mood is confirmed in the first minute of Rashomon, with the camera opening on the titular half-ruined gate dripping from a terrible monsoon where three men find shelter and a priest saying “I don’t understand, I just don’t understand.” The gate is significant to Japanese history, having stood at the Southend of Kyoto in disrepair from constant flooding until it was taken apart in the 15th century. It was a hotspot for discarded corpses and abandoned infants. In this text. The gate symbolises the decay of society, and the men within represent the people of Japan, a tradesman, a priest, and a beggar.
The purpose of the film is a point of contention between foreign and domestic critics. Aaron Kerner analyses the film as a commentary not of “questioning truth, or the relativity of truth as such, but is rather questioning reality.” This is a valid reading of the film that is shared by other critics like Donald Richie, a western expert on Japanese film. Whereas one of the most respected names in Japanese film criticism, Sato Tadao, argues against this interpretation. According to Sato, the director’s true intent was to offer a criticism of the immorality of the immediate postwar period. Sato writes that even though Toshiro Mifune was playing the role of a character of a thousand years earlier, Kurosawa had intended for him to represent ‘reckless youth born of the moral collapse of defeat.’ This quote comes from a summary of a translation by Andrew Horvat, so there may be some discrepancy with what Sato believes. However, this idea of criticising immorality can be seen in how each character is depicted within the film.
Within the film, four perspectives are dictated to the audience as if the characters are on trial. With the camera positioned opposite the character testifying, and the one being interrogated answering questions that have no audio. As if Kurosawa is asking the audience to be the judge of each testimony and their actions. As judges, we can see the correlation between each story and figure out where each has embellished the tale. Tajomaru, the famous bandit, tells a thrilling story of him seducing a beautiful woman and then duelling her husband to death. The bride, tells a story of how after having been raped, she felt victimised by her husband and was forced to kill him when he insulted her. The disembodied spirit of the husband speaks of his own suicide as a result of the shame. Finally, the woodcutter's revealed story hides the fact that he stole from the corpse. All four of these have one thing in common, preservation of honour and dignity. Kurosawa certainly seems to be making a comment on the human condition of lying to ourselves and others to feel better about our sins. Perhaps a commentary on Japan coming to terms with the war crimes they committed during the Pacific war.
The beggar says to the priest and woodcutter “if you’re not selfish you won't survive” and compares people like himself to dogs. This is definitely a criticism of how people reacted after the war, and the tragedy of a tanking economy and a loss of life. In another famous Kurosawa film, Yojimbo, the same sentiments are touched upon, with the behaviour of the villains being a commentary on how feudal states allow people to take advantage of one another, and allow greed to poison the country. Akira Kurosawa is popular for kickstarting the samurai genre and inspiring the lone wolf characters in western films. In his other works Samurai are selfless, skilled, and cunning heroes who overcame tremendous odds. In Rashomon, it’s essentially the opposite. The noble samurai is also tempted by greed, as Tajomaru lures him off the path with the promise of riches. Yet in every perspective within the story, the samurai’s honour is what gets him killed. Whether it’s in a duel, by seppuku, or to remove his wife’s shame.
The bride is an interesting character to look at when analysing Rashomon. Her depiction changes wildly between perspectives and has interesting relevance considering the time period. Between 1945 and 1952. General Douglas Macarthur was overseeing the occupation of Japan and had placed restrictions on the type of media that could be produced. Anything feudalist, fascist, militaristic, or supportive of the emperor was banned. He also placed emphasis on portraying women and minorities more positively in an attempt to break down the kind of rudimentary caste system Japan had to separate classes of people. Rashomon was able to sneak through despite taking place in Feudal Japan and having a depiction of a woman who was simultaneously an object of desire, a victim, a manipulator, and a killer. For a majority of her screen time, the bride is on her knees or seated, often sobbing from the trauma she’s experienced. One character even says “women use their tears to fool everyone, even themselves.” The bride is a mystery, her representation is one-half misogynistic, as a sexual object and an emotional manipulator, but also one half fleshed out. Depicting fierceness, and independent intelligence. This gives credit to the idea of Kurosawa analysing the roles of civilians in post-war Japan and breaking down stereotypes to create an air of mystery around each of the eight characters shown on screen.
Kurosawa seems to place a bandaid of hope on what had been a very depressing narrative about a lack of truth. Where the woodcutter takes an abandoned baby from the gate and offers to care for it. The woodcutter walking into the camera is the last shot of the film. The director seems to be saying in this instance that it is the audience's job to care for a new life in the aftermath of tragedy and to do our best to care for one another despite our flaws and lack of faith in the truth. What Kurosawa said to his assistant directors during production was “Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing; Egoism is a sin the human being carries with him from birth; it is the most difficult to redeem.” It’s amazing that this story has stood the test of time and remains a very relevant, human story more than 70 years later, using its subversive and often confusing narrative to communicate a fatal flaw in the bonds of society.
Bibliography
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Kerner, A., 2005. Film analysis. 2nd ed. Norton reader, pp.462-483
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pp.189-196.Encyclopedia Britannica. 2022. Meiji Restoration - Accomplishments of the Meiji Restoration. [online] Available at: <https://www.britannica.com/event/Meiji-Restoration/Accomplishments-of-the-Meiji-Restoration> [Accessed 15 April 2022].History.state.gov. n.d. Milestones: 1945–1952 - Office of the Historian. [online] Available at: <https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconstruction> [Accessed 13 April 2022].
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