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Film: Rashomon
Year of production: 1950
UK Release date: 13th October 2008
Distributor: Optimum
Certificate: 12
Running time: 88 mins
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki
Genre: Crime/Drama/Mystery
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Japan
Language: Japanese
Review by: Colin-John Gardner
The amalgamation of two of prominent writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short stories, Rashomon is perhaps the greatest and most influential piece of work by the grand doyen of Japanese filmmaking Akira Kurosawa. The film was an international triumph, and helped usher Japanese cinema onto western audiences, as well as gaining Kurosawa worldwide recognition.
Rashomon opens during a heavy storm at the forbidding and damaged remnants of Rashomon Gate in 11th century Japan. As the rain pounds away, a priest (Minoru Chiaki) and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) sit in utter distress, pondering the horrors they have just witnessed. Soon enough, a commoner (Kichijiro Ueda), running into the ruins for cover from the violent conditions, approaches the men and queries them on their troubles. The woodcutter divulges that he had recently found the body of samurai (Masayuki Mori) who was supposedly murdered by a bandit (Toshiro Mifune), and that he and the priest had just returned from the murder trial in relation to it.
The film then cuts to the inquest, where the bandit Tajomaru recites his version of the events leading up to the samurai’s death through a subjective flashback. Following his testimony, the wife of the murdered samurai (Machiko Kyo), as well as the samurai himself, albeit through the use of a medium, deliver their accounts of the story to the court, again shown through biased flashbacks. Each story presented is exceedingly different except for the rather decisive point of the person in question admitting to committing the murder, or in the case of the samurai, committing suicide.
However, despite admitting to ultimately being responsible for the crime, each character has a somewhat explicit reason for wanting to deceive the court. After the testimonies are heard, the story cuts back to Rashomon Gate, where the ostensibly objective woodcutter gives his versions of the events. However, even his truth may be apocryphal…
The idea of subjectivity is the most important facet of Rashomon. As each version of the tale is told, the viewer is presented with the character’s skewed truth in the form of a flashback. In the context of the time, this was a truly remarkable and astonishingly original innovation to put into a film, as questioning the verisimilitude of a scene would be thought of as unimportant or utterly superfluous. In essence, Rashomon showed that the camera was not inerrant, and that it too could present a falsehood or be the victim of circumstance. The film’s main purpose, then, is to question the veracity of statements as it furiously dissects the nature of communication.
The acting performances within the film are, at times, somewhat extraordinary. During the flashback scenes, the performers play their characters in a rather eccentric way and their behaviour is often analogous to that of silent film acting. The idiosyncratic touching and perpetual frenzied gaze of the bandit Tajomaru, as well as the animated movements and outlandish howls of laughter by the wife of the samurai, are just some of the examples of the radical facial movements and exaggerated gestures employed in the performances within the film. This makes Rashomon beautifully expressive and is a testament to Kurosawa’s direction.
Despite not being one of Kurosawa’s most extravagant films in its appearance, the film still possesses some striking cinematography, as well as exotic locations and mise-en-scène. Kazuo Miyagawa, the film’s cinematographer, is one of the chief reasons for this. Some of the shots used in the film are truly wonderful; the desolate ruins of Rashomon Gate being pounded by the power of the rain at the beginning of the film is a specific example that creates an immediate atmosphere of intrigue. One of the most unforgettable aspects of the film is the woodcutter’s walk through the jungle in the first flashback. Here, Miyagawa points the camera into the sky as the woodcutter moves. The sun, shining through shrubbery and high trees above, is a marvellous aesthetic thrill that stands to be the most memorable sequence in the film for its subtle beauty.
Despite moderate domestic success at the time, the film was never seen as anything close to a revelation until it was shown overseas. Winning the 1951 Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival cemented its critical achievements as it was the first non-European film to win the award. Rashomon also paved the way for western audiences to experience Japanese films and allowed Kurosawa the freedom to create more influential pieces of work in the future as well as giving the auteur international prominence.
Technically proficient and beautiful in its aesthetics, as well as intelligent and profound in its story, Rashomon is genuinely a cinema classic and is Akira Kurosawa’s magnum opus. Showcasing a narrative style that would go on to influence cinema to the point of being to some extent common, Kurosawa’s film asks a universal question to which we are challenged to query the very nature of the truth. CJG
Film: A Tale Of Two Sisters
Release date: 22nd November 2004
Certificate: 15
Running time: 115 mins
Director: Kim Ji-woon
Starring: Kim Kap-su, Yum Jung-ah, Lim Su-jeong, Moon Geun-young, Lee Seung-bi
Genre: Drama/Horror/Mystery/Thriller
Studio: Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: South Korea
Having been adapted from a Korean folk story entitled Janghwa Hongreyon jeon, A Tale Of Two Sisters amalgamates the subtle, sinister atmosphere of an urban myth with a stylized, visual beauty integrated by director Kim Ji-woon.
The film begins with a young girl being questioned by a psychiatrist in an eerily indistinct scene set inside a bleak, white hospital. What follows, rather unsurprisingly, is a story centred upon two sisters, Su-Mi and her timid younger sibling Su-Yeon. The girls are getting ready to move into a beautiful, yet utterly secluded house, in the serene countryside, with their father, Mu-Hyun, and a seemingly iniquitous stepmother, Eun-Joo. The reason for this change of locale is hinted at being a recovery from some unspecified disturbance.
The sisters struggle to settle in their new surroundings, due to their relationship with their belligerent stepmother. Despite the tension between the three females being overt, with Su-Mi openly showing her hostility toward Eun-Joo, Mu-Hyun seems unreservedly desensitized to the issue, and reacts only by opting for calm within the family. Disturbing occurrences soon occur within the house, with a tormented Su-Mi struggling with the visions of peculiar nightmares whilst trying to calm her younger sisters’ deteriorating mental state, due to a combination of an ostensibly terrifying wooden closet and the wicked actions of Eun-Joo…
Like many films released during the boom years of East-Asian horror cinema, A Tale Of Two Sisters is somewhat attentive towards the idea of disunity and dysfunction within the family unit. Su-Mi’s fractured and hostile relationship towards her stepmother, as well as Mu-Hyun’s seeming lack of interest and concern, are indicative of a broken family. This apprehension invoked by the cracked relationships between the characters is an excellent aspect of the film, especially when coupled with the eerie, hazy tension within the house.
One the film’s most important and impressive facets is the sheer ambiguity which looms over the story. From the opening scene within the hospital to the rationale behind the resentment between Su-Mi and Eun-Joo, as well as the underlying mental disturbances of the characters, director Kim Ji-woon refuses to spoon feed the audience, and keeps us firmly in the dark and guessing throughout the film. The ambiguous nature of the story is aptly juxtaposed with the mental states of the characters, and in particular, Su-Mi.
The ambiguity throughout the film may slightly deter some viewers, as the story is sometimes difficult to follow due to a certain lack of exposition. However, this is a key component of the film, and is sine qua non in adding a certain amount of vagueness and tension to the story, which, at times, is built up to frightening proportions. This is often helped by the pacing of the film, which can be very slow. When the girls first move into their new home at the start of the film, the pacing of the film is almost dream-like, setting up a wonderfully tense atmosphere highly reminiscent of a David Lynch film. Although it speeds up at the film’s denouement, involving several twists and turns, the best instances within the story are when the pacing is slow, and scenes are often cut together in an almost meticulous fashion.
The horror in A Tale Of Two Sisters is dictated by the underlying psychological aspects which run through the film. The emotional distress manifests through bizarre events which can be very creepy. Particularly eerie set pieces involve a gruesome Su-Mi nightmare laden with a subtext of menstruation, and a truly peculiar scene in which Mu-Hyun’s guests experience an outlandish dinner scenario. As the story progresses, the audience is often persuaded to question the validity and pragmatism of certain scenes, and, as the mental states of the characters become more mysterious, things are increasingly not what they seem.
Aesthetically, the film is beautiful. The visuals combine a surreal reverie with a dark and gothic aspect which makes for an excellent grouping. The opening scene, for example, is a visual delight. The shady and sterilised hospital room merges with an atmosphere of tension and ambiguity to produce a perfect starting block. Alongside the dark shadows which encompass the film are a litany of vivid and dazzling colours which bring out the films dream-like quality.
The overriding feeling whilst watching the film is of pure anxiety. As the film draws to a end, twists become apparent, which really do piece together the story. One criticism may be that the film is somewhat over-complicated, with some aspects of the film being superfluous. On occasions, it can be confusing, whilst at others, it can be like a Lucian Freud painting; both beautiful and gruesome, sometimes hard to watch, yet you cannot keep your eyes off it.
In what has been customary for successful East-Asian horror cinema of recent years, the film was given a Hollywood remake, The Uninvited (2009). However, this original is truly superior. An aesthetically beautiful, yet, at times, utterly disturbing film that delivers a deliciously disconcerting atmosphere throughout. CJG
