One of my many unwatched classics.

I am going to use the most undeserving word to describe this film, but I can't think of another. Mesmerizing.

It is absolutely amazing how perfect a feat of storytelling this is. There are a lot of present day directors who can learn a lot about how to structure and pace a story. All they have to do is watch this masterpiece.

Kurosawa's plays with perspective, without losing sight of the central story or themes. And there is a lot to digest here. It is so much more than a story about crime told from different perspectives. That, in itself, could have been enough, but this film adds a striking and appealing philosophical depth…

Criterion Collection Spine #138
Through the Eye of Criterion
"Top 100 of all time Selection"

"The demon living here in Rashomon fled in fear of the ferocity of man"

The film that introduce the great Akira Kurosawa to the world, so what is Rashomon?

A film about morality.
A film about perception.
A crime drama.
A mystery.
A cautionary tale about society.
The weeknest and the will of men.

'Rashomon' is so layer that you can pick and choose any of these themes and run with it and then re-watched it and run with another theme and it will work as good.

One of the things that stand out for me is how little dialoge there is, most of the…

50/100

Blasphemer! But this just plain isn't the radical exercise in subjectivity that its champions claim. "I've seen so many men getting killed like insects," intones the priest at the outset, "but even I have never heard a story as horrible as this. This time I may finally lose my faith in the human soul." Because people lie for self-serving reasons? Welcome to since ever. The four stories aren't (as some folks implicitly suggest) variant good-faith interpretations of an unknowable event, subject to bias and the vagaries of human perception; these accounts are so radically different that three of the four simply have to be lying through their teeth, and it's fairly clear that the woodcutter's tale, despite his own…

I once heard someone refer to this film as "The final word on reality" and that's pretty much a perfect explanation for this film. What Kurosawa does here is really dig into the question of perspective and why we see things the way we do and how that's shaped by our point of view. Are we lying? Maybe, but sometimes our memories lie to us, they give us a version that fits the way we want to remember things for whatever subconscious reasons there are.

So here you have Rashomon, maybe the greatest film made by one of (if not THE) the greatest directors of all time. A story told and retold and retold from the perspective of each person…

I have only seen this one other time, in high school, when I was first devouring the works of the Master. I remember not liking it too much at the time. This lends further credence to the well known philosophy of "High schoolers are fucking dumb man." The acting by everyone in this is perfect, Mifune in his "Raging ball of animal nature personified" mode and Shimura at his sad faced best.

The camera roves throughout, always making sure the shots are perfect. And the story, of course, is as influential as they come.

Literally the only thing wrong with it is none of these actors seem to know how to laugh realistically.

The great thing about being so obsessed…

I originally thought I had to watch this film as part of my 30 countries/30 days challenge only to find that I put Seven Samurai in the Japan spot. With that being said I really enjoyed this film.

I get a feeling every now and then that that a film has many problems cause I can't find anything wrong with it. This has only happened to me a couple of times, the most recent being with Hitchcock's Rear Window. I felt empty at the end because I had nothing to pick apart, nothing was out of place. Everything has a reason for being on screen.

Being a huge fan of storytelling this film appeals to me in a way many…

Part of the Around the World in 30 Days: A 30 Days, 30 Countries Challenge

Film #1: Japan

Rashomon is a testament to how simplicity can be the most effective if harnessed in the right way. Kurosawa's adaptation of the Ryūnosuke Akutagawa novel In A Grove, tells the terrible tale of a rape and a murder from four different perspectives. The film had only one set, and six actors, but it's bare bones nature made for greater focus on the characters and the stories they told. It's a complex mess of he says she says, and Kurosawa strives to illustrate the subjectivity of perspective, and the human nature to lie to protect oneself.

The four main actors were fantastic, conveying…

I have only seen this one other time, in high school, when I was first devouring the works of the Master. I remember not liking it too much at the time. This lends further credence to the well known philosophy of "High schoolers are fucking dumb man." The acting by everyone in this is perfect, Mifune in his "Raging ball of animal nature personified" mode and Shimura at his sad faced best.

The camera roves throughout, always making sure the shots are perfect. And the story, of course, is as influential as they come.

Literally the only thing wrong with it is none of these actors seem to know how to laugh realistically.

The great thing about being so obsessed…