The Unreliability Of Human Memory

Haven’t we all at one time, had occasion to witness an incident and attempt to recount the details as faithfully as possible. Too often though when an accounting of events is given by multiple witnesses, their stories don’t always agree. Is this because our memories are fallible, or is it perhaps because our thoughts are driven by a more personal agenda?

Of the many great motion pictures made within the first ten years following World War II, one that stands above all others as a testament to the frailty of human discourse. Neither a Hollywood crafted American film, nor a study by an auteur in European cinema, this one work from Japanese filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa has brought more discussion and contradictory interpretation than any other, past or present.

Rashomon is a film that speaks to the unreliability of one’s perceptions, and the self-serving nature of historical truth. This 1950 feature is very much a cautionary tale, an allegory for a post-war world that resonates today in ways we never thought we could imagine.

Kurosawa’s creation was such a groundbreaking rendering of symbolism and imagery, that after achieving the ‘Golden Lion’ award at the Venice Film festival in 1951, the American Academy for Motion Picture Sciences quickly devised an honorary Oscar to bestow upon Rashomon.

More recent films that bring into question the authenticity of the ‘witness’, like ‘The Usual Suspects’ for example, stand as an homage to the genius of Akira Kurosawa.

Rashomon however, delves farther and deeper into the human morality of perceived truth. It also questions the very nature of our capacity to express the truth without personal agenda.

For any true lover of cinema who has yet to watch Rashomon, this is one film that is considered a rare, ‘must-see’ epic. Though made in Japanese, the beauty of this work is that the story is carried by its images, as any great picture should. Subtitles will help guide the viewer without becoming a distraction, and music drives our emotional investment in each of the characters’ unique version of their story.

The film is set in mid-evil Japan, a time when the nobility of the Samurai was prevalent in the hierarchy of Japanese society. The story revolves around a brutal crime, where rape and murder are perpetrated in a dense forest, and its three participants are called to the courtyard of the magistrate to give an account of their part in the incident. Even the dead man has a say at the trial, as you will understand shortly.

The opening scenes of Rashomon show us the steps of temple ruins and draws us inside during a torrential downpour. We are led under the roof of the decaying temple gate where two men sit in the silent torment of their inner thoughts. A priest and a woodcutter have taken cover from the rain, and are joined eventually by a vagabond, or commoner, to wait out the storm. The vagabond arrives as from the screen, symbolically bring the viewer into the narrative.

The priest we see is embroiled in a personal struggle with his dashed beliefs in the goodness of mankind. He struggles to understand the litany of tragedies that have befallen the human race over recent years. He questions our capacity for good in the face of the evil he has witnessed. The priest is questioning his faith, and if his life has been spent worthwhile.

The woodcutter, who we learn has stumbled upon the crime scene in the woods to trigger the narrative, is distraught and confused by the day’s proceedings. He feels he has been dragged into a net of deception along with the priest.

The two men have just returned from acting as jurors at the courtyard trial. They’re unable to reconcile what they’ve seen and heard and the vagabond wishes to be entertained by their tale of woe. As the narrative unfolds, the vagabond listens intently to the woodcutter’s seemingly reluctant accounting of the three-day-old crime.

From this point on, Kurosawa shifts to a series of flashback scenarios to describe the death of a Samurai in the forest, and then to an open-air courtyard where the participants give their evidence.

The intense rainstorm at the Rashomon temple reflects the despair of the two men inside, and it resonates as a metaphor for post-war Japan and the fate of present-day Japan in 1950.

Many western film critics and theorists of that era and since then have concluded that Rashomon is a tale about the subjectivity of truth. Kurosawa though, explains how this notion is incorrect in his cleverly titled autobiography, ‘Something Like An Autobiography’. He states it is rather an exploration of man’s inner turmoil, and the insatiable need to paint himself in a positive light. The filmmaker is suggesting that when people lie or embellish, they do so in the interest of self, and when told over enough times it becomes their perceived version of the truth. Perhaps, as a harbinger for what we witness today on the political spectrum, Kurosawa described his masterpiece as a study in ‘the quicksand of ego’.

“Human beings are unable, to be honest with themselves about themselves”, Kurosawa writes. “They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.” — Akira Kurosawa

This is where Kurosawa’s mastery of symbolism ignites his interpretation of Rashomon.

There are only three locations for this film, the Rashomon temple ruin representing the present day, the open-air magistrate courtyard where the two men hear each person’s account of the crime, and the forest where the incident took place three days earlier. Lighting and weather play key roles for each setting, as a mark for the time each occurs, and for the enhancement of mood.

The woodcutter’s ax blade glistens in the sunlight, a warning that something sinister is about to occur. He crosses a chasm over a makeshift bridge to take us away from the present. A ‘worm’s eye view’ of the forest canopy with sunlight dancing in and out above the leaves, suggests another realm where our perception of reality may become clouded from the truth.

The woodcutter finds the grotesque figure of the dead Samurai tangled in a thicket, and we transported to the scene of the trial. Each version of the incident is described in great detail by the three people who there in the woods. First, an infamous bandit and the beautiful wife of a Samurai tell their story, and already we begin to understand that not all is at it seems. Then the victim himself, the dead Samurai gives the court his version of the event through the visions of a psychic medium.

The outdoor testimony unfolds in the shadows created by the pagoda structure of the courtyard, while the jurors sit in sunlight off to the corner of the screen where we almost forget they have an important part to play in this drama. Light is shed grudgingly on the witnesses, forcing our senses to focus on each person’s testimony as they seemingly bare their souls.

They give their testimony facing the viewer so that we are effectively made judge or magistrate. Kurosawa is asking us to determine which version is closer to the truth.

This film is not complicated by style or cinematographic trickery. But the filmmaker draws us in by the most calculated of means, and before we know, we are fully invested in the characters and their tale.

“Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.” — Akira Kurosawa

In the bandit’s version of events, he promotes himself as a feared outlaw, a great lover, and a great swordsman. His exaggerated, self-aggrandizing tale embellishes the event to feed his selfish pride. He is observed as crazed from living as an outlaw, so he feels compelled to exploit his trickery, and his prowess as a man to subdue and seduce his captives.

He claims that if it were not for the wind, a breeze that stirred to awaken his senses to the presence of the women, he would not have killed that day. Because he is the feared bandit, he tries to make us believe that he killed on a whim, but not before surviving what he hails as a historic battle with a great Samurai.

A music motif that is reminiscent of American Westerns, a genre Kurosawa admired as a budding filmmaker, is used as tension for the heat of the duel, and to enhance the aura of dominance displayed, favoring, of course, the bandit.

The Samurai’s wife tells a different tale in which after she is assaulted by the bandit stranger, she fights valiantly to win her freedom. The sexual tension builds in a Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ seduction dance, suggesting she is an active participant in this seduction if only to protect her honor and her husband from harm.

When the bandit runs off without her, she is left to a husband who fixes a gaze of sheer disdain upon her, forcing her to beg him to kill her and rid her of her shame. When he refuses, she kills him instead, and the tears of shame begin to flow. Desperation is her final card, played to perfection as the defiled victim. In medieval Japanese culture, her rights if any, are minuscule. She must be seen as a victim to survive. With her testimony though, the Samurai’s wife must still satisfy her ego, and suggest to all who are listening that it was her great beauty that drives men to such acts.

Under the rain-soaked canopy of the temple, the vagabond’s interest has been piqued. While the woodcutter carries on to tell the dead man’s version, the priest falls further into despair for the future of mankind.

A Shinto medium begins her recreation of the Samurai’s tale with a psychic awakening to a trance-like state and cries as if from the beyond, “Who threw me into this dark hell?” The Samurai defines his confinement even in death, as a perspective from his ego. Even in death, the Samurai must protect his station, and place the blame for his fate on the others. In his version, his wife wants to leave with the bandit willingly, even begging the stranger to kill her husband first. The Samurai has convinced himself that he fell victim to an elaborate ruse, and to protect his honor he is left with no choice but to take his own life.

In each case, the story’s participants go to great lengths to camouflage their desire for the whole truth to come out. Is there any truth here? Was the Samurai murdered? Was the woman raped, or did she seduce the bandit? Each of them has created a scenario where their tale reflects themselves first, in the strongest light.

When the woodcutter suddenly tries to convince his two companions that he saw the entire event unfold, he must tell a story that portrays the three participants as self-absorbed bumblers. He now believes that he witnessed the sword fight between the bandit and the Samurai. The two combatants wrestle in a bizarre comedy of ineptitude. There are no other sounds but the grunts and lunges of swords as we watch the bandit take the upper hand, more out of sheer luck than skill. After all, how else could anyone defeat a great Samurai?

In the woodcutter’s version, the bandit begs the woman to go with him, to be his wife. The woodcutter has given in to his self-importance, projecting an entirely unrealistic view of what happened in those woods.

The vagabond has decided now he has heard enough. He is about to leave the two men to their lies and misconceptions, telling the priest to embrace evil as the true nature of man.

The clergyman does not go unscathed in this morality play. He is prepared to renounce his entire belief system because he has lost the ability to love unconditionally. Too many bad influences, war, famine, and criminal behavior have convinced him that all hope is lost. The ever closing dark hole of ego leads the priest astray.

The vagabond mirrors his changing beliefs by professing selfish behavior as the only chance for survival in this world. This character, the vagabond, the commoner; he represents the basest sentiments of humanity. He represents us, the audience, the world that wars for power over one another.

As proof to the vagabond’s point, an abandoned crying baby suddenly appears behind one of the temple walls. The vagabond arrives there first and steals a valuable amulet that was placed under the child.

The priest scolds the vagabond for his selfishness, even when confronted with a defenseless child. The vagabond shrugs off the priest’s rebukes and runs off with his stolen goods. Survival is his only morality.

With the introduction of this baby to the scene, we are forced to confront our thoughts about our perceptions of truth. How did the child get there? Was it abandoned by the Samurai and his wife, perhaps? We can never know, but Kurosawa tests our morality by introducing the infant. A sudden change of heart occurs in the confused and conflicted mind of the woodcutter.

The priest, now in total despair for the human race, wonders how this child will survive. The woodcutter proclaims, “I have six of my own to feed. What difference will one more make?” His shame is consumed by his feelings for this abandoned child, turning his conscience from the events of the last three days.

The priest hands the child over, thanking the woodcutter profusely for taking the child, and for restoring his faith in mankind. The film ends with the woodcutter, babe in arms, exiting Rashomon into the sunlight of new dawn toward the screen, toward the audience, thus restoring hope for the goodness in all of us.

“The great appeal of film is its relatability” — Akira Kurosawa

In the time this film was made, Japan was only five short years removed from a brutal defeat at the hands of the West. Ravaged by two atomic blasts and the squalor that remained, the Japanese people were waking to the reality of their leaders’ thirst for power, and its ultimate consequence.

Kurosawa’s masterpiece is a ringing inditement of the egocentricity that brought Japanese imperialism to its knees, and of those that follow in their footsteps. The diminishing dark hole that is the human ego he suggests, is often the cause of our ultimate undoing.

Rashomon by this definition went on to spawn ‘The Rashomon Effect’, a stark warning against the evils of self, and that which deflects our attention from the things that really matter. In today’s environment of self-satisfying pursuits, we would do well to keep Rashomon’s message and its effect in mind.

In today’s context where we question the truth in every corner, Rashomon may not only be one of the post-war world’s most important films, it may be one of the most important films ever made.