New Year's Countdown... of Excellence: 7 - Rashomon (1950's selection)

7
Rashomon
1950, d. Akira Kurosawa - Criterion Channel

The Story (in two paragraphs or less)
Two men sheltering from the rain in a massive, partially destroyed gate structure are joined by a third. The two men are shaken by their experience in court this day.  The first man, a woodsman, tells of his experience encountering a dead body.  The second, a priest, talks of encountering the dead man, a samurai, and his wife on the road.

The woodsman recounts the testimony of a captured bandit in court.  The bandit explains how he encountered the couple on the road, and his sudden cravings of lust for the bride overcame him.  He tricked the husband, tying him up, assaults the wife and then said she begged him to fight her husband, one of them must die to save her from the shame of two men knowing her dishonour.  The men fight, the bandit victorious but praising the samurai for his skill.  But the bride appears in court with a different story, one where the bandit rapes her and leaves her behind to the cold stares of an indifferent husband.  She frees him with her dagger and begs him to kill her, but passes out from her shame, she said when she awoke her dagger was in her husband's chest.  A medium tells the samurai's story from beyond the grave, one in which the bride agrees to be with the bandit even after his attacking her, but first she asks that he murder her husband.  But the men see the woman as villain and she flees, the bandit leaves, and the samurai says he killed himself with her dagger.  But the woodsman, knows they are lies for he saw what really happened.  It was not the bandit, the bride nor the samurai that were to blame but all three villains in their own story.  With these recountings, the woodsman and the priest have their faith in man shaken, but a baby left behind in the temple startles them into finding goodness in each other.

What did I think I was in for?
I've been hearing the term "a Rashomon-type story" bandied about quite frequently for the past year or two, and I thought it to mean a story only complete when told from different perspectives.  I didn't think it to mean a story told from multiple different perspectives with lies to shape how the audience feels about the character(s) in the story.

I watched many of Kurosawa's films in the early-2000s and couldn't remember if this was one I had seen. (It wasn't).  I was anticipating another big, long samurai epic (I was probably thinking of Ran).  I was also expecting more of a samurai story, not, essentially, a crime story.

What did I get out of it?
Kurosawa had made 10 films by the time he did Rashomon, what surprised me was how rough this felt as a whole.  The acting was very theatrical, very broad and unnecessarily melodramatic.  I thought the roving camerawork in the woods (where all the retellings take place) was often pedestrian and uninspired, though the lighting created some curious effects.  I liked much more his static shot compositions, particularly the court scenes.  The rain (tinted with ink) is beautiful on camera hitting the Rashomon gate.  The music is so overbearing which is odd given that Kurosawa wanted more stillness in the movie so there's not much gaffer work, no sounds the swords make swiping through the air and such.  He's emulating silent film, where the soundtracks are the storytellers, the difference here is we have four different storytellers within the film, a fifth being the director/editor, we don't really need the score to be yet another one.

I understand now the story structure being referred to when someone describes something as "Rashomon-like" now, which must be what is most celebrated about this movie.  I found, however, that the story itself was vilely misogynistic, and though in the eyewitness recounting it's clear the bride is exhausted being basically a pet for a man, it still vilifies her for even having such opinions rather than capturing any sympathy towards her.  The film's coda, with more than a bit of belabouring it's point about man's nature, seems egregious. A lot in this movie, both in what it is telling and how it is told, feels outdated.

Do I think it's a classic?
Personally, I think Kurosawa has many better works which I would put above this.  I like the story for how it is told, but if I don't particularly care for the story that's being told and I feel too brow-beaten by what it's trying to say to love it.  It's a classic in that it does something unique for its time that others borrow down the line, so it has lasting resonance, but just not a personal classic.

Did I like watching this?
Even at 88 minutes I found it tedious at times, especially up front.  Once you get into the storytelling it does get fairly intriguing but, by the end, once the storytelling resolves and it dips back into moralising, it's almost too much.  So, a liked it a little, but not a lot.

Would I watch it again?
I imagine I'm going to do a Kurosawa marathon at some point, and yeah, I'll watch it again for that, but it's not going to be a go-to for me.