Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa

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"Rashomon" by Akira Kurosawa numerous characters display dissimilar testimony about a particular event and they all claim to have the story straight. To begin, a wood cutter who remains nameless is in the forest when he comes across a lady's hat, a gentlemen's hat, a piece of rope, an amulet case with red lining and finally a dead body in the thicket. Upon seeing all this he runs immediately to the police to report what he has found. The police do some investigating and find the man who they believed was to blame for the murder, lying on the beach next to a stolen white hoarse. The police bring him in to be question to find that he is the great bandit Tajomaru and that he was not thrown from his stolen hoarse as they had thought but he had just drank bad water and was lying down because he felt ill. As the questioning continues Tajomaru admits to the crime of killing the man and tells his side of the story. He claims that he was resting in the woods when a man, Takchiro and a woman, Musago on a hoarse pass by as the cool breeze blows.
This breeze reveals the Musago's face to Tajomaru and he decides that he has to have her. In efforts to win the women he tricks Takchiro into thinking there is a tomb filled with treasure nearby and Tajomaru offers to sell its goods to Takchiro inexpensively. Takchiro agrees that he will take a look, but on the way Tajomaru attacks and successfully ties him up. This gives Tajomaru the perfect opportunity to pursue the helpless wife they left behind. In doing so Musago pulls out a dagger and fights fiercely with a strong will to keep Tajomaru off of her. Despite her efforts he Tajomaru soon succeeds in rapping her. Then Tajomaru begins to leave when Musago pleads that the two men fight, for she can not take being dishonored by two men. So the men fight and Takchiro is a good fighter but not as good as Tajomaru who kills him in the thicket after their swords crossed 23 times. After this occurs the wife runs off and Tajomaru takes off on the hoarse and sells Takchiro's sword for sake.
Following the testimony of the bandit the police then hear the testimony of the Musago. She starts off by saying that after Tajomaru took advantage of her and she could not put up any sort of fight because she is too weak. After Musago was raped she went to her husband to be consoled and too untie him but what she found was pure hatred f...

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...t of stress and confusion.
She did not place the body in the thicket simply because it did not fit with the rest of her story. Next, Takchiro lies through out his testimony for several reasons. Foremost he lies about consoling his wife so he doesn't seem like an insensitive jerk. Then he lies about not wanting to fight for her because he then realizes it was pointless since he lost his life and was dishonored. Also he lies about killing himself to make his death seem more honorable, but in reality he was ashamed that a common bandit defeated him. Lastly, the woodcutter's story is almost exactly accurate except for two things. He lies about not seeing the dagger, for in reality he stole the dagger and probably soled it.
He also lies that he saw nothing until hours after the crime had been committed, he does not come forward in fear that the police will realize he tampered with the crime scene and stole the dagger for his personal gain. All the above reasons are why the interrogatories lied throughout their testimonies. In summation the four eye witnesses in the movie "Rashomon" distorted reality in there heads to make themselves look like honest, more honorable people.

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