Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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109 of 112 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truth & Illusion., March 30, 2002
If you have never seen this film, you will come to it and find it very familiar. That's because Rashomon has become part of the world's consciousness & lexicon. It's story of an action involving several participants, each with their own differing version of the truth, has been elaborated and riffed-on by many others since it appeared on the world's stage in the 50's.So, it is an old movie, often imitated. And yet, I found it fresh and involving and well worth a look. As Robert Altman says on the DVD extras, many of the camera techniques, particularly shooting directly at the sun and allowing lens flare, were taboo-breaking and radically new when this film appeared. Now, that is put in as a joke in Shrek. So you come to Rashomon not to be overwhelmed with its "newness" and the refreshing change of first encountering Japanese cinema and acting styles. No, you come to Rashomon as to an old master, to appreciate its lasting impression of the universality of human foibles and passions and the illusory nature of truth. A rape and murder have occured in a woods. We hear and see different versions of the same encounter. Who is telling the truth? Is there an absolute objective truth, or does every teller of the tale inherently only tell the truth as he sees it? And if everyone is a "liar" and there is no absolute truth, what is the point of anything? Don't let the heavy questions mislead you. Rashomon moves quickly, fluidly and gracefully, telling its story with economy and, to me, humor. Much is made of the dark philosophy underneath the theme, but I find great sardonic humor in the film. One example, the fight between the thief & the man as related by the woodcutter...it is messy and unheroic, sweaty, breathless and awkward and the antithesis of the stylized balletic sword fights found in, even Kurosawa's, samurai movies. In the end, as familiar and much copied as Rashomon has been, it is still like no other film. It is unique, and the result of a master filmaker's vision, unified and beautiful and unforgettable.
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81 of 88 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
About the Criterion DVD, April 2, 2002
RASHOMON, Kurosawa's classic existential masterpiece, is Japan's CITIZEN KANE. It offers some rather profound insights on the human condition while also being a technical and artistic tour de force. Like KANE, RASHOMON also uses a nonlinear, fragmented narrative to show the multiplicity and unfathomability of human nature. With an engaging murder mystery as its basis, RASHOMON should please film enthusiasts and novices alike. The restored video transfer on this Criterion DVD edition makes the film look as good as new. Blemishes that used to be on older video releases have been digitally cleaned up. Sharpness and contrast, while not spectacularly good, are excellent (to provide a point of reference, it looks much cleaner than Criterion's SEVEN SAMURAI DVD). The original Japanese mono soundtrack is rather hissy, however. A cleaner English dub track is included, but voice acting is sub-par (actually, in my opinion, terrible; in one instance, it is even out of synch with the action). The analytical audio commentary by Donald Richie is well-rounded, covering the themes, photography, acting, editing, and music of the film. The booklet includes English tranlations of the two short stories that inspired the film, and an excerpt from Kurosawa's autobiography that pertains to RASHOMON. In a 16-minute excerpt from a Japanese documentary about the film's cinematographer, various camera techniques used in the film are revealed. This DVD is encoded for Region 1 only. For those who keep track of things like this, Criterion has only made a handful of Region 1 DVDs, which include ARMAGEDDON, BRIEF ENCOUNTER, CHASING AMY, THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE, GIMME SHELTER, THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, HIGH AND LOW, KWAIDAN, NOTORIOUS, THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, RASHOMON, THE ROCK, SAMURAI I, II, and III, SANJURO, SEVEN SAMURAI (second printing), THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET, THE VANISHING, and YOJIMBO.
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29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Alternative Expressions Of Fact: A Puzzle Without Solution, September 7, 2006
Somewhat curiously, Japanese critics were not enthusiastic about RASHOMON when it was released in 1950 Japan. Today, however, RASHOMON is generally considered to be the film that introduced both master director Akira Kurosawa and Japanese cinema to the west; it is also often cited as the film that prompted The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to create an award for Best Foreign Language film. It is widely regarded as a masterwork of world cinema.
Set in 12th Century Japan, the film's premise is at once both very simple and very complex. A man is found dead in a forrest, and several people are brought forward to give testimony in the matter. In some respects their accounts agree--but in numerous others, some obvious and some very subtle, their stories differ. As each character gives his or her version of events, the various differences pile higher and higher, leaving the viewer to wonder at the motivations involved.
Has each person simply interpreted the same facts in different ways? Do they deliberately lie in order to protect themselves? Are the differences in their stories deliberate or subconcious? The film offers no easy answers. Some have criticized the film for seeming to state that there is no such thing as ultimate truth, but RASHOMON is more complex than this: it is essentially a meditation on our inability, be it deliberate or unintentional, to reach more than an approximation of ultimate truth due to the very nature of humanity itself.
Much has been written about the look of the film, which is indeed memorable. Filmed by Kazuo Miyagawa, it presents the forrest as a living, breathing entity; the images are powerful, the editing remarkable. No less so are the performances, which require the various actors to shift in behavior as each person involved gives their own account of the event; this is particularly true of Toshiro Mifune, a frequent performer in Kurosawa films, and actress Machiko Ky. But whether lead or supporting player, all performaces are equally astonishing.
The film has been extremely, extremely influential over the years, and as such it no longer has quite the same "shock of the new" that it had for audiences of the 1950s; nonetheless, this is director Kurosawa working very close to the height of his power, and while he would create other films that equalled and bested RASHOMON, it remains among his masterworks. The Criterion edition is quite fine, offering a near-pristine print with your choice of subtitles or dubbing (the former is recommended) and several memorable extras. Strongly recommended for fans of world cinema.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
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