So good it might bring you out in a Rash

Contrary to what my list of movie reviews on this site, and the general feeling about me and films by all who know me, I actually do watch 'proper' films amongst my spades of straight to video martial arts nonsense and horror garbage. Indeed, I can't claim to have been a huge fan of the work of Akira Kurosawa for years, his movies are ones I often looked at in shops, but never bought due to the horribley high price tag. This was until a few weeks back when I found Rashomon, The Seven Samurai and Kagemusha all priced at £10 or less, and felt compulsed to buy them. Years of watching Godzilla movies have rendered subtitles powerless against me, and for some reason I decided to start with Rashomon. While I was looking forward to the Seven Samurai more, it's epic length means Im actually going to have to set aside a healthy chunk of time to sit and watch, whereas Rashomon is a more workable just over 80 minutes in runtime, and coincidentally it's the oldest out of the three, so I suppose it's a logical start point.

The story is pretty hard to sum up in medium length, I can do the short version and the incredibly in-depth version, personally I think people should watch it themselves, so you are only getting a pretty brief rundown of the plot.

Rashomon tells the 'simple' story of the rape of a woman and the murder of her samurai husband in a medieval Japanese forest, as discussed by 3 men, a Woodcutter (Takashi Shimura - Mothra), a Priest (Minoru Chiaki - Godzilla Raids Again) and a Commoner (Kichijiro Ueda - Return of the Giant Monsters), all seeking shelter at the damaged Rashomon gate from terrible rainstorms.
The story features the fearsome bandit Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune - Yojimbo), the Samurai Takehiro(Masayuki Mori - Zatoichi at the Fire Festival) and his wife Masako(Machiko Kyo - Thousand Cranes). The woodcutter found the body of Takehiro and reported it to the police, and we hear 4 different versions of the tale from 4 different points of view, each drastically different from the next. The woman,Bandit and even deceased, through a medium (Fumiko Honma - Daikaiju Baran) give their versions of the story to the police, before we hear the woodcutter's tale as the Priest and commoner try to figure out exactly what happened.

The story of Rashomon is without a doubt it's most interesting point. It never gives the viewer a definitive version of what happened, and each person telling the story lies about at least one aspect of what is happening to try and save face a little. Tajomaru claims he was responsible for the death of Takehiro, after a fierce sword duel. He says this because he is feared throughout the land as a great and fierce bandit, and the versions of the story told by the others do not make him out to be so. Each character barring one claims to be responsible for dealing the deathblow to Takehiro, each through a different method and after differring events. While you could question the use of the medium (was this common practice for the police in ancient Japan?), but on the whole the story is excellent.
The movie is famous for it's themes of the truth and how we percieve things differently, be it subconciously or to reinforce ideas about ourselves. Tajomaru still wants to be known as the fearsome bandit and great warrior, so he exaggerates parts of his tale. Takehiro wants to die known as a man of honour and so on.
The fact that we never learn what was the outcome of the trial, sort of detracts and adds to the film. While it does sort of leave you with a large issue, I suppose the fact that the police were using a medium really sort of dispels any hope of it being a conclusive trial on any counts, and you have to take into account that the police, like the viewers, have no idea who, if anyone, is telling the truth, so any sort of conclusion would be hard to come to, but as I say, this does also sort of add to it in that seeing as you are never given a version of the story you are told is accepted as the truth, it forces viewers to come to their own conclusions.

Despite my constant saying this, I feel I have to, Im not keen on going too far in terms of criticising the acting in a movie Im watching subtitled or dubbed, because the voice and tone of it can play a major role in performance, but as far as I could tell, for the most part the acting in the film is generally spot on, with the actors playing the three involved parties distinctly in each version of the story, but still keeping a sort of core feeling of them. Mifune does go a bit OTT with his laughing and prancing at points, but on the whole not enough to really annoy me. I was a fan of Machiko Kyo's performance, given that she changes the most drastically accross the three stories, but she pulls each of these slants on the character off very well.
The DVD I have, a Region Free Elstree Entertainment copy, features what seem like decent enough subtitles, and given that it isn't an overly action packed film, dubbing really isn't necessary, because it's easy to concentrate on what the subs say and still take in everything that is happening visually.

The music is a moot point with quite a few viewers, and while I wouldn't go as far as saying it was bad, I don't think it suited the film all that well. As silly as this sounds, I don't really know why it didn't suit, possibly I was expecting some stereotypical Oriental music. Like I say, it isn't bad, but on a few occasions it just distracted me a little.

There are no special effects in Rashomon, apart from Kurosawa's excellent procedure for making the fake rain visible, which it has to be said works wonders. He put black liquid in for the rain to make it stand out on the black and white film, and it certainly succeeds in giving the impression of a harsh rain storm.

On the whole, Rashomon is a movie I feel deserves full marks. It's flaws, of which there are a few, but they are minor, do not detract from what is, on the whole, an immensely enjoyable picture, that has a superb story that draws in the viewer, but also succeeds in making them think.
Rashomon is certainly recommended for those who don't mind movies that are in Black and White and subtitled. It isn't the most action packed movie ever, but it wasn't intended to be, and what it lacks in pace it more than makes up for in terms of plot and interest.
If these don't put you off, I would recommend Rashomon, even at straight up purchase. In fact, if you live in the UK, this can be picked up for as little as £5, so you really have no excuse for not taking in this classic film.