RAIN, RASHOMON, AND REVERBERATIONS: A JURISPRUDENTIAL TANGO

THROUGH TRUTH, LAW, AND HUMANITY

I. INTRODUCTION

Akiro Kurosawa’s ‘Rashomon’ is regarded as one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces in

existence, a film that has cemented its legacy as an enigma of jurisprudence and philosophy.
It is a film that forces the viewer to question justice by creating a loop of subjective truth,
human nature, and societal power.

The film shows us a confusing courtroom, with different stories that try to make each person
look like the good one. This film presents itself as fertile ground to inquire about
philosophical and classical works such as Kafka’s Before the Law 1, the Case of the
Spelunchean Explorers2, and contemporary Indian works by Manto 3, Guha, Teltumbde and
Sathe. We can put these big ideas together to understand the point of view of peoplewho are
usually not listened to like the writer, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak talked about.

[Link] RASHOMON PARADOX: TRUTH AND SUBJECTIVITY IN LAW

Rashomon asks the question of subjective truth. The film presents multiple versions of the
same incident—rape and murder—from a bandit, a samurai, the samurai’s wife, and a
woodcutter. In a world which is built upon the imaginations and flights of fancy in man’s
dreams, how can one ever confirm the absolute, indisputable truth? Is it even possible to
establish a reality of this world when this world has not even come to its conclusion about
what it wants its truth to be?

Maybe we learn the most by searching for the truth. Human beauty is found in the chaos of
facts. In this human beauty, we find our will to live and continue in this world plagued by
Nosferatu’s Hell.

The differences in these narratives are reminiscent of Fuller’s ‘The Case of the Spelunchean
Explorers.’ Like the judges who grapple with whether to exonerate or condemn the
spelunkers, Rashomon’s characters reveal the complex interplay of facts, human bias, and
moral uncertainty in constructing a narrative of truth- because the truth exists in a morally
grey area.

1
Franz Kafka, Before the Law (Schocken Books 1971)

22
Lon L Fuller, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers (1949) 62(4) Harvard Law Review 616
33
John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (2nd edn, Oxford University Press 2011)
This dilemma draws attention to the core tension between Natural Law and Positivism. In
both the cave scenario of Spelunchean Explorers and the lawless wilderness of Japan pre–
Meiji Restoration Era, individuals are stranded beyond the reach of formal legal institutions,
challenging us to consider the validity of justice in an anarchic state. Does justice exist
independent of social institutions, or is it an arbitrary construct?

WE ASK:

1. Is natural law guiding the characters in Rashomon? OR

2. Are they merely acting on primal urges outside the boundaries of morality and legal
reasoning?

Kurosawa, like Fuller, leaves the answer ambiguous, letting us ponder the legitimacy of the
bandit's behaviour and the wife’s blame.

I. WOMEN AND POWER: ANALYSING THE ROLE OF THE SAMURAI’S WIFE

The film portrayed the samurai’s wife as an extreme paradox of morality. She’s may be the
only person who is both a victim and villain. In one sequence, she is the typical victim of rape
and in another sequence, she is Mean and Uncaring, not caring about the man she should be
with.

Despite the Director’s attempt to villainize the character, they ultimately failed, since her life
was completely worsened whether the bandit or samurai prevailed. This plight of women also
parallels itself in multiple practices of self-immolation on the Asian subcontinent through
‘agni-pariksha’4, ‘sati’ and ‘Jauhar’. All to either protect, preserve or establish their dignity in
a world which viewed their relationship with the world as dependent on their piety and purity.

The film also discusses the intersection of law, power, and oppression. Guha examines how
colonial laws marginalized women, stripping them of agency. The wife is confined by the
male gaze, judged harshly for her survival instinct in a deeply unequal world 5. Manto
highlights the systemic violence and disenfranchisement women face, questioning the very
foundation of "blame" within such a system6.

4
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of
Culture (Macmillan 1988) 271–313
5
Ranajit Guha, Dominance Without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India (Harvard University Press 1997)
THE FILM IMPLORES US TO ASK THESE TWO QUESTIONS UPON
COMPARISON WITH THE ABOVE-MENTIONED TEXTS:

1. Can we, in good faith, hold the wife accountable for her actions when the institutions
around her provide no refuge or support?

2. To what extent can we place this burden on her shoulders, especially in a historical
context where women were powerless, their voices easily drowned by male-
dominated narratives?

I. EMOTION AND WEATHER: A PASSIONATELY INDIFFERENT RELATIONSHIP

Rashomon contrasts warmth—passion, desire—with the cool detachment of shame and

loathing. The bandit’s tale is driven by bold, fiery emotions, portraying his crime almost as an
act of love. In contrast, the samurai and wife’s accounts reflect colder emotions like
resentment and detachment. This emotional tension is mirrored in the weather: rain
symbolizes confusion doubt and lawlessness, while the sun at the film's conclusion represents
fleeting clarity. Despite the persistent ambiguity of truth, the woodcutter’s act of kindness
introduces a moral warmth. This moral warmth is perhaps the only consistent source of
comfort in a film that tends to oscillate between the heat of the Gobi Desert and the cold of
the Russian tundra.

I. CONCLUSION

Rashomon ends with a quandary:

CAN JUSTICE EVER BE SERVED WHEN THE TRUTH IS SO DECEPTIVE?

The film intertwines themes of subjectivity, emotion, and lawlessness, forcing us to confront
the fragility of our inexperienced and juvenile moral judgments. The characters serve as
cyphers for societal issues:

1. Wife- The oppression of women

2. Bandit- The complexity of human emotions

3. Samurai- The struggle for justice in a lawless land

In conclusion, Rashomon mirrors the Spelunchean Explorers’ quandary: the search for truth
in a morally ambiguous universe. It critiques both natural and positivist notions of law, urging
us to reconsider what we mean by "justice."

In a world where rain clouds our vision and the sun only occasionally breaks through, can we
ever claim to know the full truth?