Rashomon Effect

Caught the "Rashomon" screened at the National Museum during the Akira Kurosawa Retrospective some time back. Although I had watched the movie many years ago during my Jap lecture, the experience was quite forgettable since one could never quite pay attention in a vast lecture hall with coldness leeching onto the skin. For this second viewing, much attention was needed, however, to filter out the irritating 'screeching' (produced by the old footage) amidst the cinematic sounds. Aside the great storytelling, I was amazed by the extrapolation of the tensions and complexities of thought through the composition of the scenes, especially the ones in the woods, of the three main characters (bandit, samurai and samurai's wife).Rashomon had earned much critiques and analyses, even to the extent of having the term "Rashomon Effect" being coined in the social, psychological and law academia. The "Rashomon effect' also influenced me to watch Kurosawa's other films, "Ikiru", "The Hidden Fortress", "Red Beard", will be laying my hands on other titles from our campus library.