This is the opening scene, which sets the tone of the whole article.
According to legend, Rashomon is an evil place, where ghosts hide for fear of human cruelty. Humanity is what director Akira Kurosawa wants to convey to the audience.
On the surface, the film is extremely simple. Four different characters describe the same thing, but they are different. Why does the same thing have different descriptions? This is also where the director wants to leave the audience to think.
First of all, we must understand that there must be untrue elements in these four descriptions, and of course there are real elements. For example, if a girl is insulted, * * * is recognized, which means it really happened!
So why do they hide or even lie about some facts?
Being caught has become a reality for robbers. Because of his own evil, it is impossible to come out. So why not let yourself die like a strong man? We can understand one, two, three from his wild and arrogant laughter when he confessed. So whether he killed the samurai or not, he admitted it without thinking. In his view, it wouldn't be so bad to admit killing samurai. On the contrary, he was satisfied with his inner strength.
For a young girl, losing her virginity is a very unacceptable fact. What makes her more miserable is that her husband (samurai) looks at himself with contemptuous eyes. This filled her with anger. Angry women are terrible, not to mention this situation. So she began to provoke the two, saying that her husband should fight like a man and fight with the man who robbed his woman, instead of being timid. There is a little bit in it. The girl said that she fainted and woke up to find her husband dead. This is contrary to common sense. People can't calm down immediately after suffering a great mental and psychological blow. The only explanation is selective forgetting, forgetting the facts that you don't want to remember.
As for the samurai, first of all, I express my extreme dislike for this role. After his wife was insulted, instead of bravely protecting and comforting her, he spit on her and said that she was not as good as his own horse. Is this what a man should do?
The samurai told a sad story through the mouth of the witch. In this process, I have always stressed that my wife wanted to commit suicide after being insulted. She committed suicide, not homicide. He emphasized suicide, on the one hand, to protect his dignity as a samurai, and if his wife was taken away, he would be extremely despised.
Among the above three people, the samurai and the girl thought that the short knife inlaid with precious stones was the murder weapon, while the robber thought that the long knife was the murder weapon (the robber used a sword). The reason why this point is emphasized is because it has a lot to do with the confession of farmers (witnesses).
According to common sense, farmers are the least likely to lie, and should be the most knowledgeable about the whole process. Turns out he lied, too.
This can be seen from his different confessions before and after. I believe everyone remembers the hand that farmers saw when they were chopping wood at the beginning of the film. However, the fact is that he not only saw this, but also witnessed the whole process. At the end of the film, passers-by hit the nail on the head.
The farmer had to fabricate the fact that the samurai was killed by a long sword because he saw that Qian had a short knife. Only in this way can they stay out of it.
From the confessions of these four people, we can easily find that they have one thing in common: first, everything that has nothing to do with their own interests is true. Second, people who have a stake in themselves will sacrifice harm for the benefit, or even fabricate harm. Everyone's confession is to make things develop on the road of self-interest
We might as well expand the role of these four people. Farmers, the witness is the audience; Robbers and warriors are strong, while girls are weak.
Reflections on Rashomon's films II. Now there is a popular "killing game" on the Internet. This game is very popular because it is full of deception. Killers hide themselves by cheating; Civilians find out the murderer through deception; Even the eyes of the dumb judge and the victim are full of doubts. Behind the derailment is actually everyone's selfishness.
The main line of Rashomon is killing people, but this "game" is not fun.
Rashomon fell into disrepair. Under the heavy rain, it quietly greeted people who came to shelter from the rain. Rashomon, which is sparsely populated at ordinary times, seems to have regained a little vitality. But the people under Rashomon are talking about inanimate things-killing people. People seem to have entered the world of Rashomon.
Rashomon's world is dark, deceitful and selfish. The woodcutter was the first person to see the samurai killed, but he was also the first person to tell a lie. He fabricated the facts so as not to be implicated, because he took the good dagger. The man who caught Duoxiang Pill said that he fell from his horse, but Duoxiang Pill said that he drank poisonous spring water. Duo Xiangwan said that she likes Zhensha because of her fortitude, but Zhensha is extremely fragile when testifying. The wizard "invited" the samurai's soul and wrote, directed and performed a good play of samurai suicide.
Everyone tells a different "story", not only cheating, but also cheating. Who can we trust? But director Akira Kurosawa didn't let the film end in deception. He made us believe in ourselves again. The monk is the only one in the film who doesn't lie and trusts people very much. He believed in firewood sellers, fragrant pills and samurai ... but after he trusted everyone, he began to lose his mind. After the firewood seller told the truth he saw with his own eyes, his faith wavered; Seeing the abandoned child stripped naked, he lost his faith; He found his first belief when he thought that the firewood seller would take away the last close-fitting dress of the child. After the rain stopped, the firewood seller took the child and left.
Director Kurosawa showed us the selfish side of people through Murder, but the last sentence "You made me trust others again" showed us the good side of human nature. Rashomon is a hell in Kurosawa's mind. People become selfish after entering rashomon. When the rain stopped, people walked out of Rashomon, and everything became authentic again. In fact, "Rashomon" does not exist, it only exists in our hearts.
I haven't been very busy recently after watching Rashomon's movie. I have seen many movies that have always been regarded as classics by the world, and many of them are really good. Maybe making a movie like that is the real art.
The old Japanese film Rashomon has a simple story structure and only a few characters, but it always makes people feel uneasy after watching it. Only after watching the film at the end of the film will they understand why the monk has the dialogue at the beginning of the film. "This time, I may lose confidence in the human soul, which is more terrible than robbers, wars, plagues, natural disasters and famines."
The film reveals the most terrible thing in the world from the story and the storyteller, that is, dishonesty between people. Everyone can lie, betray others and be desperate to protect their own interests, which really scares me.
Another angle of the film is that the seemingly docile and weak young woman is always in tears. When she touches her own interests and safety, her face is so ferocious, and the changes in her inner activities are so rich, even more vicious than robbers and husbands. China's phrase "the heart divides the belly" is also quite reasonable.
No matter a robber, a warrior, a young woman, a woodcutter, a witch or even a fictional ghost, none of them are honest and trust each other. They all lie and cheat for their own interests, which makes people feel scared, even more than any horror film.
Only when the rain stopped at the end of the film did the foreign story show the dawn. When the woodcutter admitted his deception and walked out of Rashomon with the baby he found, he saw the gentleness and kindness of human nature, which may be the only hope.
As modern people, lying should be something we often do, and we don't think it is ugly or sinful. For example, in modern times, lawyers always beautify themselves properly to ensure that they have nothing to do with their clients, so that ugly people who are unfavorable to them can get their sentences reduced and be released alive. However, the film is also a normal person's thinking. When telling your own story, beautify yourself and uglify others. However, the biggest difference is that all three parties admit that they killed the deceased. Of course, we believe everything the dead say, but it's incredible that the dead confessed to suicide when they were reincarnated! At that time, the idea that the director wanted to express was "the darkness of society, the ugliness of human nature, no truth, everyone is selfish." Although in the whole movie, the sunshine is very abundant, which truly shows that people at that time were bold and did all the bad things in front of the sacredness, with no intention of repentance! Finally, Zhensha, who succumbed to the fragrant pill, looked at the sun with her eyes open. The director arranged a rainstorm throughout the film (pure self-exploration). I think it is to let the rain wash people's dirty hearts.
It seems that people walk in the maze of truth, can't get out, and don't want to get out. The samurai's wife was humiliated, and the samurai's death has become a fact, but the parties and onlookers have different opinions. No matter who is telling the truth, it represents the selfishness of others.
At the end of the film, the woodcutter, the monk and the handyman heard a child crying outside. The handyman ran out first, took off the kimono on the child and hugged it tightly, leaving it to the woodcutter to grab it. The monk picked up the child. Finally, the woodcutter was kind-hearted and adopted a child (mankind returned to light from darkness). The monk said, "You made me believe that there is truth, goodness and beauty in this world." Director Kurosawa told the audience that the cruel reality of selfishness and dehumanization does exist in the human era. However, in contrast, humanitarianism is eternal, and people can be trusted after all.
Tadao Sato's exposition is very incisive. The sun and rainstorm in Rashomon are not only the background and environment of the story, but also a style of "pure self-exploration". Just like the storm in Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, it is a kind of spiritual experience and baptism for a person to face himself and exile himself in nature.
Human nature is really the scariest movie, novel and story. If you don't explore, as long as you touch, it will be an abyss of pain.
However, living in modern times, we are used to the ugliness and depravity of human nature, and perhaps we don't have to worry at all. Truth, goodness and beauty are just a kind of personal persistence and belief; Can only exist in that person's deepest heart.
The understanding of Rashomon is still superficial, and further study is needed to understand the director's thinking!