Movie Club: Rashomon (35mm)
April 4, 2024
A horrible crime is told and retold from multiple—and vastly divergent perspectives—in the classic film that brought Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa to the global stage. Presented on 35mm. Selected and introduced by SIFF Social Media Manager and Kurosawa truther Shelby Smout.
While on a journey through a wooded landscape, a samurai (Mayasuki Mori) and his wife (Machiko Kyô) are set upon by a bandit (Kurosawa regular Toshirô Mifune) who assaults the woman and kills her husband. But is that narrative as clear cut as it appears? The crux of Kurosawa’s tale, adapted from a short story by Ryûnosuke Akutagawa, is how the differing retellings of the story chip away at the possibility of an objective understanding of what has transpired. Over the course of the film, we’re given access to the conflicting perspectives of the bandit, the wife, the spirit of the deceased samurai, and the woodcutter who discovered the body of the samurai, and the truth blurs as their stories begin to stack up.
- Director: Akira Kurosawa
- Principal Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki, Kichijiro Ueda, Fumiko Honma, Daisuke Kato
- Country: Japan
- Year: 1950
- Running Time: 88 min.
- Producer: Jingo Minoura
- Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa
- Cinematographers: Kazuo Miyagawa
- Music: Takashi Matsuyama
- US Distributor: Janus Films
- International Sales: Janus Films/The Criterion Collection