In 8th century Japan devastated by civil war. A samurai is murdered in disturbing circumstances. The testimonies differ…
A crime, four witnesses and as many versions of the story. In 1950, a few years before revolutionizing action in cinema with The Seven SamuraiAkira Kurosawa signed Rashômon, a work which will pave the way for the recognition of Japanese seventh art outside its borders. Awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1951, this radically modern film recounts the assassination of a samurai and the rape of his wife through a trial, where four witnesses to the drama – even the dead , via a medium! – contradict each other. But everyone is convinced that they have the truth…
Built with flashbacks, Rashômon questions the subjectivity of the image and the perception of reality. At the time, no one had done it like that yet. An earthquake in traditional narration, which will give rise. a genre in its own right, “Rashōmon-style” films, where divergent points of view collide. The list is long : The Outrageby Martin Ritt (official remake), Usual Suspectsby Bryan Singer, Lost Highwayby David Lynch, or, more recently, The Last Duel, by Ridley Scott. But none has reached the level of sophistication of Kurosawa’s feature film which, seventy-four years later, retains an extraordinary power of fascination. (Re)seeing it today is (re)discovering, in sublime black and white, the immensity of its filmmaker (his sense of setting has no equal) and a timeless classic. A masterpiece ? Better than that: a treasure.
Rashômon, Saturday April 27 at 9:00 p.m. on France 4
FRANCIS LÉGER
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