Cinema
Rashomon
羅生門
Akira Kurosawa · 1950
Synopsis
Under the Rashōmon gate in Kyoto, a woodcutter, a monk and a commoner shelter from the rain. The first two have just come from a trial for the murder of a samurai, whose wife was raped in a forest, according to the Larousse, and the contradictory versions they heard there trouble them. The film alternates their conversation and the testimonies: that of the bandit Tajōmaru, arrested, that of the wife, that of the samurai, who speaks through the mouth of a medium, and that of the woodcutter, who found the body.
Context
The film is drawn from two short stories by the same Japanese writer, according to the Larousse. Tōhō had abandoned the project, judged too risky, and it was Daiei that produced it; shooting took place in Kyoto in July and August 1950, and the cinematographer Miyagawa Kazuo filmed facing the sun, which was then thought to be forbidden. Released on 25 August 1950, it had a moderate success in Japan and divided critics. Its name now designates the device of contradictory versions of a single event.
Who it is for
A film of about an hour and a half, in Japanese with subtitles. The same crime is told four times without the film deciding between the accounts.
Prizes and reception
Golden Lion at Venice in 1951 and honorary Oscar for best foreign film, it made Japanese cinema known in the West.
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