Rashomon (1950)

The film that brought Japanese cinema to worldwide audiences explores a very current debate: what is truth?

In a forest a samurai is murdered and his wife is raped. The event is told and retold through the perspectives of several different characters, offering contradictory accounts. What is truth? What is memory? What is reality?

Rashomon is, from all perspectives, now considered one of the cinematic greats. It won the Oscar for foreign language film and was forth in a BBC list of 100 best Foreign Language Films. In its time regarded as extremely experimental, in narrative, cinematography, lighting and editing, it’s now seen as being among the most influential of all movies. Kurosawa (Seven Samurai), one of cinema’s true auteurs, in just 88 lean minutes, challenges both the language of cinema and the way we view the events of our lives. Chris Chibnall

Japan, 1950. Director Akira Kurosawa. Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto from the 1922 short story In a Grove by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. With Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyō. 88 mins. 12A

Introduced by Chris Chibnall.

Screening sponsored by the Hazells.

Screening at BAC
£7.50/£6.50/£5
25-and-under £3
10% off for BAC supporters.

BFI programme notes

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