Rashomon

Rashomon (1950) is Akira Kurosawa's crime drama you can watch online on iFILM. Sheltering from a downpour under a ruined gate, three men retell a single killing. None of their accounts line up.

A samurai lies dead in a grove; his wife has been assaulted by the bandit Tajomaru. From there the story splinters. Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune) brags about a heroic sword fight. The wife (Machiko Kyo) weeps over her shame. The dead samurai himself speaks through a medium. Each version flatters whoever is telling it. Even the woodcutter (Takashi Shimura), who stumbled on the scene, keeps something back. The film refuses to name the truth.

Kurosawa adapted two short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa and, with this film, introduced Japanese cinema to the West, taking the Golden Lion at Venice and an honorary Oscar. Cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa aimed his camera straight at the sun through the treetops, a trick long thought impossible. The phrase "the Rashomon effect" still describes conflicting eyewitness memory. Stream Rashomon (1950) online on iFILM.