How does the form of the film fit the function?

Akira Kurosawa’s classic film, Rashomon, opens with the subtitled line, “I just don’t understand.” Spoken by one of the men to whom the audience, as observers, can feel the closest, this first line (spoken by the woodcutter) foreshadows the truly confusing nature of this movie. Focusing on the main story of a bandit who defiles (be it rape or otherwise) a passing woman, and the subsequent death of her husband, Kurosawa opts to show us these fairly simple events four times over, each time through the eyes of a different player in the drama. The film relies primarily upon the use of flashbacks to tell the story, placing the audience’s perspective completely under the control of each of the characters, and allowing us no sense of omniscience. By doing this, Kurosawa places the audience in an instinctively suspicious position, a position that becomes increasingly more guarded as the film progresses.
As we move through......

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Title: Rashomon
Approximate Word Count: 744
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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