Rashomon

Rashomon, the Japanese film industry, which, though ahead of the field in plot development, lags behind sadly in the intricacies of camera work and scene transition.

Rashomon differs from other movies mainly because it was photographed from no one position or point of view. Some motion pictures are omniscient and objective. The camera sees all the actions of its charactors dispassionately; it is only the disinterested reporter. In other movies, the camera sees through the mind of one person or journeys with him only. But neither of these cinematic techniques guide the camera which recorded Rashomon.

Instead, Rashomon portrays an incident subjectively, not through the eyes of one character, but through the eyes of each of those who took part in it. Set in 13th century Japan, the skeleton story concerns a bandit's attack on a man and his wife, the robbery and murder of the husband, and the rape of the woman. In Rashomon, this story is told four times--by the bandit, the man, the woman, and a hidden spectator. The teller's shame and conceit color each account, so that four completely different stories emerge, with only the barest similarity between them.

This plot demands two things for successful execution. First, the photographer must integrate his shots with the story line. The Japanese failed to do this. Rashomon's photographers have taken a series of beautiful stills which do not fit together well. When the photographer should be paying attention to the characters, his lens often wanders to some impressive view of the sun peeking through the trees. Painful though it may be to the roving-eyed, artistic camera man, Rashomon could use some judicious cutting.

The movie does succeed, however, in fulfilling the other essential, good acting. Rashomon demands versatility. The woman must be a tearful maniac in one scene, a persecuted saint in another. The husband moves from cowardice to stoicism, but it is the bandit who really presents a gem of an acting performance. In his own version, especially, he is a cunning beast; oozing with braggadocio. Only half-clothed, his grimy torso shimmers with sweat as he embraces the woman with iron arms and presses his face to her fainting body. In all of his scenes, the bandit in his earthy way makes Rashomon a brilliant dramatic performance.

The other portrayals, though below the bandit's performance, are generally good. Unfortunately, one sees a little too much of them. Rashomon achieves a natural conclusion approximately ten minutes before it actually flashes off the screen. The producers kept going in order to get across a moral meaning. Mistakenly, they did not realize that this moral was already implicit and that the final ten minutes only hammered it in crookedly.

But this portion can be cut, for Rashomon needs it not at all. The rest of the movie, despite its faults, is a great credit to the relatively new Japanese film industry.