“Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.”   — Akira Kurosawa

Official Trailer:

In the words of Richard Feynman: “From a long view of the history of mankind – seen from, say, ten thousand years from now – there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the nineteenth century will be judged as Maxwell’s discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will pale into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important scientific event of the same decade.” Whether it is Maxwell, Newton, or Einstein, more than the beauty of their findings and simple (but so much power packed in them) equations, to me the wonder is how did they think about them in the first place. How did they dream about it? What was the trigger? Their wiring must be different, I guess 🤔

To borrow Feynman’s words shamelessly, I get the same feeling, when I think about Rashomon. Of course, I wouldn’t take it as far to 10000 years. Ever after 70 years, Rashomon is still riveting and fascinating to watch, both the movie and its message has withstood the test of time. I got to watch the movie first time early 90s, thanks to Blockbuster video rental store, and post that every time I watched it or thought about it (too many occasions what with all kinds of conflicting news going around), I always end up with huge admiration and wonderment, how did the thought, to make a movie like this, occur to Akira Kurosawa. Many later movies like Courage under fire and Vantage Point in Hollywood, Andha Naal and Virumandi in Tamil, have used the narrative structure of Rashomon. There are many which have used the unreliable narrator techniques like Usual Suspects. Of course, they are good, but none of them were able to present the core message, perspective distorts reality and makes the truth unknowable, as powerful and as intense as Rashomon.

Continued in the link: Baradwaj Rangan – Readers Write In #243: Rashomon and Rashomon Effect