Rashomon Goes to Rwanda
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Akira Kurosowa’s Rashomon is a film set during the chaos of 12th-century
Japan that explores notions of truth, reality, and objectivity. In the film, a
woodcutter, a priest, and a commoner wait out a thunderstorm in the shadow
of a ruined gate. To pass the time the woodcutter and priest tell the commoner
of a recent investigation in which they both took part. They tell the tale of a
samurai and his wife who were attacked by the infamous bandit Tajomaru while
traveling. As the woodcutter and the priest reveal the general facts of the story,
the commoner learns that the husband has been killed and that the wife and
bandit had sex. The woodcutter and priest explain that during the investigation
the specifics of the attack are called into question as those involved relate
overlapping but conflicting versions of the events. This is where the heart of
Rashomon lies: the puzzle of the story lies in its recounting and judgments about
guilt as well as innocence that hang on the credibility of the competing versions
of reality.
According to the captured Tajomaru, after meeting in a chance
encounter, the Samurai’s wife gives in to his sexual advances, then, horrified at
her own conduct, she tells the bandit to kill her husband because she could not
bear to be shamed in the eyes of both men. The wife’s version of reality differs
markedly from Tajomaru’s. In her mind’s eye, the bandit accosts an innocent
husband and wife, the bandit rapes her and the guilty bandit flees the scene of
the horrible crime. Recovering from the attack, the wife frees her husband and
offers to let him kill her in order to wipe the stain of shame from his life. Before
Convention