Rashomon is influential cinema

Rashomon is an influential cinema with its groundbreaking story structure still influential 50 years after its release. It's influential to world cinema as it introduces the unreliable narrator to the cinema.

Rashomon was an evolutionary step in world cinema with cinema being a realist art form. This film questions the objectivity of the narrator with the events unfolding and with multiple retellings.

The screenplay of Rashomon is influential in its structure and its ambiguity with conflicting retellings of the pivotal event in the story. Its screenplay is intricate and its narrative is finely polished to stretch the boundaries of storytelling in the medium of films.

This film has an intimate theatre play aesthetic to it with its usage of close-ups, tightly edited with well-staged sequences, and an intimate look and peek into our principal characters. Cinematographer Kazuo Miguawa does a lot of inventive work behind the camera through which the look of the film feels iconic and influential. The film is tightly edited with intimate close-ups capturing the emotion of our principal cast and capturing the ambiguity.

The film benefits from a small and strong cast filled with talented actors. Toshiro Mifune is energetic and playful as the arrogant bandit. Masiyuki Muri gives the dead samurai a sense of regalness and a still dignified honorable persona for the most part. Kuchiko Oyo gives the most varied performance of the three with each retelling revealing a different side to her character. Takashi Shimizu plays the woodcutter with a sense of cynicism and bitter sadness with the somber and dour tone of Rashomon.

Rashomon is a film that explores the darker nature of the human psyche and the objectivity of human action . It's a great film which matches the vision of Kurosawa and his auteurship which makes this film timeless.