As Roger Ebert said in his retrospective review of the film, it was the “first use of flashbacks that disagreed about the action the were flashing back to.” It is as if director Akira Kurosawa is telling the audience that like the movies, life is completely subjective and any representation should be taken with a grain of salt. This film uses a frame story technique by depicting different accounts of the same scenario of the rape of a samurai’s wife, and the murder of the samurai that follows. Each story has its own unique difference to it, and in the end we never do find out whose story is true, but could that be the point? Reading about this film I came to the conclusion that Kurosawa encourages the audience to make their own assertions as to what is true and what is not about the story, and not a single interpretation is correct. As I watched this Japanese classic I noticed Kurosawa’s use of nature, the use of movement with characters, and the movement of the camera.
In one of the scenes at the trail, Kurosawa places the witnesses directly in front of the camera where the magistrate would be sitting, as they describe their versions of the events through flashbacks. This placement of the camera gives the audience the role of the judge, allowing for your own interpretation of each flashback.
During one of the films most important scenes, the director has the woodcutter walking through the woods as he cuts back and fourth between the tops of the trees and the woodcutter. Kurosawa uses nature for this scene by showing the sun is barely visible through the dense trees. It seems that
