Watching Rashômon in class was a real treat. I wanted to watch another Akira Kurosawa movie for a while. Set mostly in the woods, Kurosawa used them as a backdrop for a domestic crime. Toshirô Mifune plays the Bandit, who becomes exuberant when asked what he did in the woods just three days earlier. Having to sort out the details from four points of view was an incredible experience. The bandit's story points him as a larger than life character trying to win Machiko Kyô's heart away from her husband. Her story places her as a horrible victim, and the late husband's story told through a medium explains a balance between the two previous stories. To paraphrase the scene with the commoners, "Why would a dead man tell lies?" The truth came out in the final explanation of someone not directly involved. The wood cutter found the body, but wasn't part of the plot. His version shows the woman as a whore trying to leave her husband for the Bandit, and neither one wants her. She ends up calling them both cowards for not wanting to fight for her hand. They reluctantly did fight, but neither men wanted to.
I don't think the Bandit killed him. The wife looked most likely to have done the crime. Her sob story doesn't fool me. She wanted to leave him but under their beliefs they couldn't unless death.
Ultimately I think the woodcutter came out with the dagger in the end. He found the body and when he was explaining the story, he said there wasn't a dagger, but the husband was killed with a sword.
Mifune had a standing position in Kurosawa's films. He's done over half a dozen films with the director. They have worked on cultural adaptations of Hamlet and other novels.
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