Rashomon (1950)

Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (羅生門,) is about the rape of a woman and murder of her husband. The film is a frame story with several layers. The film gives several accounts of what exactly happened by several witnesses told by another narrator who himself is also a witness. I did not find this film particularly enjoyable because it was fairly repetitive. While the details of each person's account are different, they were all basically the same - a bandit seduces a woman, ties her husband up, and gets into a sword fight with the husband. The audience never knows exactly what happened and I suppose that's supposed to make this film better.

This film is generally regarded as one of the finest examples of Japanese cinema and a masterpiece of cinema in general. Sight and Sound magazine ranks this film as one of the ten best films ever made. I hate to disagree with critics, but I found very little to like in this film. Parts of it were okay, but overall I found this to be below average.

69/100
D+

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