(Akira Kurosawa and Intertextual Cinema by James Goodwin)
One of the most fascinating aspect of the film is just that it is extremely difficult to determine what it means. It shares with other modern art (abstract painting, free/form sculpture) an apparent lack of ostensible meaning which (in painting) returns to us our ability to see form and color, which (in sculpture) gives us our original vision--that of children--and lets us observe rock as rock, wood as wood, and which (in films such as Rashomon, Muriel, Paris nous appartient) allows us to examine human action undistracted by plot, undisturbed by ostentible reality.
(The Films of Akira Kurosawa by Donald Richie)
View more about Rashomon reviews
