Rashomon (1950)
Country: JAP
Technical: bw 88m
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Takashi Shimura, Masayuki Mori
Synopsis:
A woman is raped in the forest by a bandit, and her husband killed, but at the inquest differing accounts of the deeds are given by the participants and a passing woodcutter.
Review:
The film which almost single-handedly put Japanese cinema on the international map after the war, and which still packs an atmospheric punch equal to few others, is a less profound than it might appear meditation on the human tendency to bend the truth to most flattering effect. The hypnotic power of the visuals, especially the marvellously crystalline close-ups of the principals at tense, sweaty moments, together with the penetrating humanity of the scenario and fulsome staging, are all remarkable. Images that stay with you are low-angle shots of the treetops, and the strange, rain-soaked gatehouse where the narrator and a priest recount their uncanny tale.
Country: JAP
Technical: bw 88m
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Takashi Shimura, Masayuki Mori
Synopsis:
A woman is raped in the forest by a bandit, and her husband killed, but at the inquest differing accounts of the deeds are given by the participants and a passing woodcutter.
Review:
The film which almost single-handedly put Japanese cinema on the international map after the war, and which still packs an atmospheric punch equal to few others, is a less profound than it might appear meditation on the human tendency to bend the truth to most flattering effect. The hypnotic power of the visuals, especially the marvellously crystalline close-ups of the principals at tense, sweaty moments, together with the penetrating humanity of the scenario and fulsome staging, are all remarkable. Images that stay with you are low-angle shots of the treetops, and the strange, rain-soaked gatehouse where the narrator and a priest recount their uncanny tale.
Country: JAP
Technical: bw 88m
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Takashi Shimura, Masayuki Mori
Synopsis:
A woman is raped in the forest by a bandit, and her husband killed, but at the inquest differing accounts of the deeds are given by the participants and a passing woodcutter.
Review:
The film which almost single-handedly put Japanese cinema on the international map after the war, and which still packs an atmospheric punch equal to few others, is a less profound than it might appear meditation on the human tendency to bend the truth to most flattering effect. The hypnotic power of the visuals, especially the marvellously crystalline close-ups of the principals at tense, sweaty moments, together with the penetrating humanity of the scenario and fulsome staging, are all remarkable. Images that stay with you are low-angle shots of the treetops, and the strange, rain-soaked gatehouse where the narrator and a priest recount their uncanny tale.