Review of The Thriller Film Rashomon

Rashomon is a 1950 Japanese thriller film directed by Akira Kurosawa, it is based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa's short story of 1922 and is considered one of the greatest films ever made, it won several awards, including the Golden Lion at the Festival in 1951, and an Academy Honorary Award at the 24th Academy Awards in 1952.

Rashomon is a story about crime, more specifically it’s a story about telling of a story. The film opens in storm, and three men sitting in the shelter of Rashomon Gate. The three men are a priest, woodcutter and a commoner. The three men are the three main characters of the story and the story has three view points. Basically this film depicts three levels of storytelling. There is a story being told by the woodcutter at the Rashomon gate then the second story is told which is in the point of view of the wife, the third story is from the point of view of the murdered samurai and he tries to convey it through a psychic medium. It was the most interesting part because it was the thought of a dead person but it was portrayed in such a way that it gave a thought that that may be the truth. It was difficult to understand the last shot where the woodcutter is going with the baby.

A large portion of this movie is shot in forest, there where large unbroken shots through the forest the camera angle justifies the wide top shots, there where shots where the woodcutter was going through a piece of log and the camera was panned from the bottom. The unbroken shots gave a clear view about how dense the forest is. Another significant thing about the movie was the lighting, specifically the sun light. In maximum of the shots it can be seen that the light was directly reflected on the characters to enhance their presence and many minor detailing were also done by sunlight there long lots of the lady was taken sitting with a white hat with a horse and the shots where the dagger dazzled . The sunlight and the shadows were also used to show the dense forest.

At first viewing it was quite frustrating watching the movie because the story line that we read previously and the one which was filmed was somewhat the same but it was portrayed in such a way that it came in some other manner. The second go with the commentary was better and it cleared my views and gave me a better understanding of the movie. the most important thing about the movie and why I like this is the way of storytelling and the type of cinematography ,there is a lot of work done while capturing the shots and while editing it and giving it a mould. I would personally recommend others to watch this awesome movie.