Kurosawa And His Use Of Symbolism Throughout Rashomon

Symbolism is oftentimes used as a powerful yet subtle representation of the intentions that the director of a movie is trying to express. Symbolism is a unique and interesting form of storytelling because it allows for a variety of interpretations that help convey the overall theme. The director of Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa made a point of making use of different elements and structures throughout the film to tell his story.

In the opening scene of the movie, the three characters are sitting at a broken down gate, in the pouring rain. This seemed to be an immediate attempt at setting a morbid and dark tone. Not only this but the actors seemed to be bored, and almost sad. We are soon to find out that the story about to be told is about the murder of a man, and the trial to find his killer. As the story progresses Kurosawa chooses camera angles that show more sunlight, and overall light throughout the scenes. It seemed as though he was trying to express a sort of ignorance, and naivety of characters to the darkness and deceit that is yet to be revealed. At the same time, Kurosawa is using the shots of light to express the thoughts and naive convictions of the characters instead of using dialogue. This is just another example of his ability to tell a story through sybolism.

Yet, the more we go through all of the different testimonies of each witness in the trial, they begin to conflict, and you are left unsure of who the real murderer is, and what actually happened. If we delve deeper into the meaning of this idea we start to see the theme of the film appear. Kurosawa wants the audience to not know who committed the crime because it is not relevant to the overarching message he is trying to communicate to the audience. As you watch each of the character’s versions of what happened it becomes more apparent that each of their stories seemed to be skewed to show them in the most ideal lighting. In other words, each story is tainted by the storyteller’s bias to be viewed a certain way even if their bias is unintentional. Referring back to the symbolism discussed earlier, we see that Kurosawa uses certain camera angles and lighting to create a perspective of each character and their story. As the audience becomes more aware of this inconsistency between the testimonies, they begin to mistrust all of the characters. This was intentionally created to express the main theme that the truth is subjective and even though there may be commonalities the truth will always be skewed and twisted in favor of the person telling their own version. This idea is symbolized in the opening and ending scene of the movie where the camera pans out from a broken gate, and it is pouring rain. Not only does it set a morbid tone foreshadowing what is come at the beginning of the film, but the broken gate specifically acts as a metaphor for human deceit, the evil nature of humans, and the loss of faith in humanity. This was one of the most iconic symbols of the entire movie and it is unlikely that the audience can understand it’s importance until the end of the film. This is an interesting use of the gate because it is utilized throughout the entire movie as the woodcutter is telling the story of what happened, the interactions during the present timeline were almost always from the setting at the gate. If we look deeper at the gate metaphor we see how much of it is completely destroyed yet, the three men seem to have made a home out of it. This goes to represent their complacency of living in a world where integrity and honesty are qualities that do not seem to exist anymore. Therefore, the real truth does not exist and oftentimes people will use deceit and other methods to help them achieve the outcome they are looking for.

The film helps make it clear that it is almost impossible to ever know what the real truth is because even if we see the truth as an objective third party we will all interpret things in our own way for our understanding. Despite Kurosawa’s cynical view of society and human nature, it is important to note that at the end of the film we return to the scene of the three men at the gate talking and trying to figure out the killer when they come across a baby who has been abandoned at the gate. Once again, Kurosawa uses symbolism and metaphors to express his hope for a better future. The baby came into the story at the end and without parents or a family to represent the hope for change with the coming generations. The child can be viewed as a clean slate for humanity, unjaded by experiences. Consequently, the baby represents the potential for a world in which people live with integrity and honesty. The baby also represents hope for the men who found it and their second chance at redemption for living a better life. The reality of the difficulty of redemption is put into perspective as the camera pans out and we see the three men holding the baby standing in the ruin of the gate, what used to be a beautiful, strong, and empowering structure. The choice to use a structure that was broken down was important because if you look closely there is still all of the materials necessary for the reconstruction of the gate in the background. This aligns with the idea that the adult humans have the ability and the skills to change human nature and society if they so choose to do so.

The contrast between the new gate and the three men holding the baby give more power to the message that Kurosawa is conveying. He is looking at the future with hope but is still making a point to show that reconstructing society and human nature as a whole will be a difficult task because they have both been deteriorating for so long.

Overall, I think the main point of the movie was to understand that there was not one correct truth, but rather everyone’s version of the truth which were each intertwined with bits of deceit to benefit each individual telling their side of the story. This acted as a reflection of Kurosawa’s beliefs of the deterioration human nature and society as a whole. I believe that his use of metaphors and symbolism gave extreme meaning and power behind his message throughout the film. The hidden subtlety of each symbol disguises the main point of the movie as just a mystery story when in actuality it is a critique of human nature and human interaction.