Rashomon

Truth beyond Rashomon

Do people never lie? Many philosophers have argued about human nature over the many centuries. Human do lie naturally. It is very hard, or even impossible, task to never lie in a lifetime as a human. The movie Rashomon describes about an indefinable truth in a case by different witnesses. The complete truth is veiled by varied lies of witnesses. Why do they lie? What do they lie for? These are questions arising as the movie shows different witnesses. Rashomon explores the hidden truth by lies based on human nature of desire, punishment, class structure and gender inequality.

People do lie for their desire. Criminal mentions that he has killed the husband during an honorable sword fight. This witness will increase his reputation as a great bandit to many people. Since he knows that he will be executed, he would not care about anything like justice or truth for future. All he cares about is how to make his value as high as possible before his execution at that moment. He has choices whether execution with or without pride when he is captured, and he chose to die with pride since that is the best for him.

People do lie for their position. The husband (or she, the medium) mentions that he killed himself as a samurai since it is an honorable custom for the death of a samurai. He wants to keep his pride of his social class as a samurai. The wife mentions that she also has tried to kill herself for her and husband's honor after the rape by the criminal, but she has failed. For the Japanese custom in that time, it is very disgrace that a female has had more than one man, which will be blamed by others. By mentioning her attempted suicide, she will be blamed less for her disgraceful event.

People do lie to avoid punishment. The woodcutter has said very different, but sounds like very truthful witness among the witnesses. But his witness also contains a lie that he has arrived the spot