Four Stories In One: Rashomon

Kurosawa's film Rashomon had an interesting story line and very well done cinematography. I couldn't get over how well he captured the emotions of the actors in all the different stories that were told. But Kurosawa put a lot of work into putting the underlying messages into the film that I was happy I was able to find. The one I saw most of was a battle of an almost yin-yang styling of good and evil. The woodcutter, a man who doesn't lie and has a family, a generally all around good man, stole the dagger. He still has that little bit of evil underneath, causing small reactions to giving into desire. The random commoner, who starts tearing down the temple, seems to only laugh at how people could care that a man was murdered, and steals the bedding of the baby seems to be a more evil being than most men. Yet, in the end when push came to shove about who was truly a bad person, he called the woodcutter out about his evil deed, and showed that everyone has that struggle. Our world is naturally evil, and our battle is to remain distant from the world's influence and try to keep ourselves absolved from evil.