Rashomon. This is my second Kurosawa flick. Throne of Blood was first. This one I didn’t like as much. Dialogue seemed a bit low on subtlety, but maybe that’s partially a translation thing? And multi-perspective flashback to previous events seems so familiar now–I wonder how I’d react if I saw it with fresh eyes. A couple characters, with their shifts from stonefaced to tears to cackling laughter, got a bit exausting. The first moments of the first swordfight seemed tense with possibility, but then subsequent fights just seem like bumbling. You can’t swing swords that much and not cut someone, can you? Nice framing here and there, interesting use of light filtering through trees, obscuring and revealing. And a mostly good soundtrack, though the section during the victim’s testimony seemed to borrow heavily from Ravel’s Boléro. I’ll be glad to see what else Kurosawa has to offer.
Mark Larson 