The Kurosawa Century #2: Narrative and Structure: Rashomon (1950) & The Hidden Fortress (1958)

Rashomon (1950, 88 Minutes)

In the post-truth world of the 21st century, Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon offers some guidance. The film announced Kurosawa as a major new voice in global cinema with its stunning cinematography and experimental approach to narrative. Based on short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the story provides four varying accounts of a rape and subsequent murder. The film is framed as a Buddhist monk, and a woodcutter relate their experience to a commoner. 

In 2026, I estimate there are roughly three types of news consumers with some variation:

1) The Credulous: They take their cues from influencers, political leaders, podcasters, slanted news channels to provide talking points to reinforce their reality. Anyone outside the bubble of their informational ecosystem is highly suspect.

2) The Cynics: They don't believe anything they see or hear from the media. They might proudly proclaim to be politically independent or simply go by gut instinct when voting. Perhaps they've been lied to and deceived by so many people in positions of power, ranging from family to politicians, but they all news as propaganda.

3) The Discerning: They still believe in truth, while accepting bias is a real thing in news reporting. They cultivate traditional and digital media, read books, and always question their conclusions and display willingness to change their views when new evidence arises. Obviously, this approach requires time and effort. 

In 1950 your everyday person might subscribe to one or two newspapers covering local and national news. TV was still in its infancy. It's not as if that world was much better, narratives remained nebulous, and crushing world events led to an infinite number of harrowing experiences. Ask anyone about their experiences during the war or depression and you will hear all sorts of stories, experiences that shaped people for life. 

But back to feudal Japan. The atmosphere in the open scene looks and feels otherworldly. The monk and the woodcutter are in despair after witnessing the contradictory accounts of the crime. The towering pillars of the gate and pouring rain (a Kurosawa motif in many films) gives one the sense they are sole survivors of a catastrophe as they ponder the final verdict on humanity. They mutter, "I don't understand, I just don't understand" and "year after year, disaster after disaster."

Kurosawa applied a flashback within flashback structure. We have four accounts of the crime. The scene of the crime was in the forest, which also feels like a character. Everything happens in blinding sunlight. 

The first account is from the bandit Tajomaru played by Toshiro Mifune. In the forest he spotted a samurai traveling with his wife, he accosts them, tied up the husband and then raped his wife. She then demands they fight to the death to save her honor, in a heroic fight, Tajomuru kills the samurai. In the wife's testimony her husband refused to even look at her after the assault, she attempts to stab him with a dagger but faints, she later wakes up to find her husband dead of a stab wound. 

Next, a medium testifies claiming to inhabit the spirit of the dead husband. In this version, the wife agrees to marry Tajomaru on the condition he kill her husband. In despair at his wife's betrayal, her husband stabs himself.

The fourth account comes from the woodcutter who witnessed the whole thing. His narrative is like an odd synthesis of the previous three accounts. After the rape, Tajomaru offers marriage, but she refuses and unties her husband and then orders them both to fight. Unlike the earlier heroic fight, this one is clumsy and half-hearted, but the samurai still ends up dead.

All the testimonies are self-serving in their own way. The truth of what happened will probably never be known. But that doesn't mean there's no such thing as truth. We tend to construct narratives about our lives we find bearable; human beings struggle with being honest with themselves. 

Rashomon reminds us that truth seeking requires courage from within, which is often at cross purposes with our own selfish natures. In today's digital world of algorithms, one's "truth" will be reinforced repeatedly, no matter how far untethered from reality. 

In the final scene, a crying baby is discovered at the gate, presumably left there by desperate parents. The woodcutter agrees to take the child with him to join his seven children. The monk feels hope for the first time. Even in a world where truth is ever elusive and people struggle with honesty
from within and without, they still have the choice to make the ethical decision. 

While the world is full of corruption and self-serving narratives, the pursuit of truth remains a worthy endeavor. Today's climate makes people believe odd things and come to even stranger conclusions. When your old friend from college you remember as a thoughtful dude now repeatedly posts about low birth rates and western civilization, your aging aunt posting 20 stories a day from Fox News, or a former mentor who believes Trump's brain will be plugged into a super AI computer that will allow him to stay in power until the 2080s - don't despair, watch Rashomon. 

The Hidden Fortress (1958, 142 Minutes)

The Hidden Fortress, along with The Seven Samurai, shaped the contours of epic cinema. Often remembered as a primary influence on George Lucas in the creation of Star Wars, Kurosawa himself was heavily inspired by the films of John Ford. The film's reverberating tones of slapstick humor, proto-blockbuster spectacle, and heightened heroism feel modern. The widescreen format, Tohoscope, created unforgettable cinematography of the landscapes, from rocky hills to majestic mountains. 

Set in 16th century feudal Japan, the story follows two peasants Tahei and Mataschichi who get caught up in a war between competing clans. After they escape capture, they discover some gold and run into General Rokurota Makabe (Mifune) who they believe is a common criminal. He leads them to more gold and leads them to a hidden fortress, where he hopes to lead beleaguered Princess Yuki to across enemy lines. 

Along the way, there are many narrow escapes, a suspenseful lance duel, a stunning fire festival, moments of greed and cowardice, but also loyalty and compassion. The symmetrical compositions, constant movement of the camera, a visual momentum. Nature becomes a character itself. Some of the cultural morays might be missed by Western audiences, such as class distinction and the significance of the fire festival when those barriers are temporarily ignored. Gold symbolizes not treasure but a rebirth of status for a clan. 

The Star Wars connections are clear. Princess Yuki was a template Leia and Padme; The Phantom Menace drew on The Hidden Fortress more than the A New Hope. The two peasants are the template for R2-D2 and 3CPO, Lucas was intrigued at how Kurasawa told the story through the lowest characters on the social hierarchy. And General Makabe was for both Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

The Hidden Fortress is best appreciated on the big screen, but it also plays on television. It's a must see for anyone interested in the genesis of modern cinema. 

The Kurosawa Century #1: Post-War Noirs: Drunken Angel (1948) & Stray Dog (1949)

Drunken Angel (1948, 98 Minutes)

The fragile relationship between a doctor and patient shapes the tragic realism of Drunken Angel. An early entry in Akira Kurosawa's canon, the film starred Takashi Shimura (Sato) and Toshiro Mifune (Matsunaga). Set in a swampy area of Tokyo shortly after the war, the insular setting to the film reinforces its themes of existential angst and entrapment. 

Mifune's a low-level player in the Yakuza who's slowly being diminished by tuberculosis. Shimura is a local physician, also disappointed with his station in life and is struggling with alcoholism, offers treatment. While tuberculosis was curable, it required discipline from the patient. Sanada warns Matsunaga that he will slowly die if he refuses treatment, which required long periods of rest and no alcohol. 

When the local kingpin arrives and mocks Matsunaga for refusing drink it leads to a downward spiral, a cycle of commitment to treatment and being pulled back into his violent life. After he overhears the Yakuza bosses' plan to remove him it leads to a violent climax.

The sense of fatalism and melancholy running through the film are best communicated through Dr. Sanada. He accepts that some patients will commit to improving themselves and others will not. Matsunaga considers leaving everything behind to focus on curing himself, but in true noir fashion, fate has other plans.

The collaboration between Kurosawa and Mifune is important to film history, While Mifune would become known for playing Samurai warriors, he had remarkable range and it's on display in both films. As his coughing and condition worsens, he keeps looking thinner and, by the end he looks like a zombie. He brought some of the angsts associated with method actors like James Dean and Marlon Brando, but also the quiet resignation of Robert Mitchum. Kurosawa liked to let the camera linger on Mifune as he walked off into darkness. 

Kurosawa's mastery of composition begins to show itself, but there's also expressionism and a surreal dream sequence. Unlike many American noirs which often ended on a note despair or hopelessness, Kurosawa chose continuity as an ending.  

Stray Dog (1949, 122 Minutes)

If Stray Dogs isn't Kurosawa's first masterpiece, it's absolutely a near masterpiece. Set over a few days during a Tokyo heat wave, Toshiro Mifune stars as Detective Murakami who must recover his gun, a Colt, after a pickpocket lifted it on the train. The film is about an obsessive quest to find a gun in a vast urban space. Takashi Shimura co-stars as Detective Sato, a veteran who comes to the aid of high-strung Murakami. Influenced by the American noir The Naked City, Stray Dogs is a remarkably cinematic, subtle, and humanistic crime film. 

Stray Dog is considered a procedural, and it follows the familiar tropes: the bureaucratic drudgery of investigations, scenes in the forensic lab, and hours of searching through documents and paperwork. Kurosawa, clearly working with a bigger budget, employs many cinematic techniques. Montage sequences are used to build tension, gritty Tokyo settings and architecture to provide atmosphere, a tense and methodical sequence during a baseball game at a packed stadium, there's even a musical sequence. Over the two-hour run time Kurosawa builds an immersive world. 

Murakami learns his gun is linked to a string of shootings, increasing the urgency of the situation. The symbolic relationship between a detective is gun is another trope of crime fiction, like when a Captain takes away the badge and gun is symbolic. When an officer loses his gun it raises questions about his ability, and yes, there's also the emasculating aspect of the situation. Mifune plays it as an agonizing experience, the idea of not only having something stolen from you and having it used for awful deeds increases the hurt. The Colt serves as a great MacGuffin for the story, the script uses a countdown technique to great effect, referring to the number of bullets in the chamber.

Stray Dogs also uses the buddy cop formula long before it had a name. Mifune and Shimura are teamed up again to great effect. Sato warns Murakami, 'You can't be this tense all the time." He imparts wisdom but not in a condescending way, no grumbling about being teamed up with a rookie. Mifune brings angst and restless heroism. Their dynamic reminded me of that between Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman in David Fincher's Se7en, I suspect this film was a major influence on Fincher. Later, Sato takes Murakami to visit his family in a warm scene, shades of Lethal Weapon. 

Kurosawa also takes a sociological approach. Tokyo was devastated after the war; the displacement of young people is a major theme. References are made to rationing and the American occupation. The Yakuza provided opportunities for disparate young man (Yasu) on the run. When Murakami and Sato visit the shantytown where Yasu lives, the assailant's sister and mother are both warm and sympathetic. They speak of him spending his free time reading comics and fantasizing about a better life. Murakami realizes his life was on a similar trajectory and begins to view the suspect as a shadow of himself. 

Sato warns Murakami, "let the crime novelists psychoanalyze." The final beats to the film move to a fatalistic conclusion like Drunken Angel, Sato leaves us with one last bit of wisdom, the longer one works as a cop, "the less sentimental you get." Stray Dogs set a model for the modern crime film, providing breadth to characters who would be forgettable in other films and packing every scene with nuance.

Backrooms (2026)

Now that we're in the summer when You Tubers conquered cinema, I made a trip to the theater to see Backrooms. Directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, the film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. The story, based on a series of YouTube videos created by Parsons, explores the surreal realm of liminal space. Visually the film is often exciting, and the script by Parsons and his co-writer Will Soodik does a serviceable job of introducing the concepts of this oddly familiar but disorienting cinematic universe. 

Ejiofor stars as Clark, a former architect who now manages a furniture store. He voices his life frustrations (his wife recently left) to his therapist Mary (Reinsve). After a night of drinking Clark discovers he can walk through a wall inside the store and sees endless hallways of abandoned office space. There's also strewn furniture everywhere, but the images get increasingly unnerving, like blood on the carpet or strange graffiti on the walls. Some rooms look like a Salvador Dali painting. Clark becomes obsessed, and suspects something evil is happening, he confides in Mary, who eventually investigates the space herself. Then the film moves into more conventional horror territory.

The architecture of the liminal space is star of the film. Some parts also look like an M.C. Escher painting; one scene plays like a homage to Vertigo. The nightmare logic recalls David Lynch, especially Eraserhead. There's also a Twilight Zone vibe (especially "Little Girl Lost), or maybe Black Mirror is the appropriate reference. I viewed the hallways as a metaphor for anxiety, the sense of being trapped in an agitated state of mind and scrambling to find an exit. That's what works best about the concept, it's open to varying interpretations. 

I suspect Backrooms will become a major franchise. Track is clearly being built up for several sequels. That's not a criticism there's potential to take the story in all sorts of directions. I'm not sure we're witnessing something akin to the 1960s culture shocks of The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde, or the blockbuster totems of Jaws and Star Wars, but we are seeing young filmmakers engaging with the medium in ways that bring a sensibility not just honed by digital spaces, but with the vast history of cinema. 

***

Disclosure Day (2026)

Spielberg's greatest hits? Disclosure Day aims for the wonder of Close Encounters and the warmth of E.T. but also leans into the darker Sci-Fi of A.I. and Minority Report. The film weaves between chase sequences to quiet moments of fragile emotion.

The film's central premise is an intriguing one: What happens on the day we learn extraterrestrial life exists? After 80 years of endless UFO reports, accusations of coverups, and endless material for pop culture through the decades. Has the time arrived? There's an exhaustion with all the cultural mythology running through the film. Do people, outside of passionate fringe groups, even care about the UFO phenomenon anymore?

Critics will dismiss Disclosure Day as a 21st century film consumed with 20th century obsessions. The landing of the mothership in Close Encounters awed audiences in 1977 but will likely generate a collective meh from today's generation.

While the culture might've moved on from blockbuster spectacles, filmmaking still matters and Spielberg's incredible mastery of the medium is on display. We're in Spielberg land: lens flares, smooth camera movements, bluish sheens, lots of awestruck close ups. Watching characters monologue to John Williams cues is nostalgia itself. In one scene, Emily Blunt's character makes an emotional breakthrough, I can't imagine any other director handling it with more grace than Spielberg. 

The two leads in the cast are Josh O'Conner as an idealistic whistleblower and Emily Blunt as a newscaster who suddenly gains remarkable cognitive abilities. Colin Firth takes a villainous turn as a cover up artist for a mysterious corporation (echoes of Patrick McGoohan in Scanners). Colman Domingo is the spiritual center of the film, analogous to Francois Truffaut in Close Encounters.

The emotional highpoint arrives around the 2/3 point; the last section is a gesture towards spectacle. It's a tough call, the film definitely goes for wonder, but it falters into a popular mode from the analogue era. Contact (1997) engaged deeply with the humanistic questions of Extraterrestrial life, while Arrival (2016) focused on communication, Disclosure Day is ultimately a Sci-Fi thriller. Big questions are set aside, preference is given to the emotional journey. 

Like Close Encounters, the themes are humanistic. Empathy is front and center and channels a longing for human connection. Disclosure Day plays like a synthesis film, specifically in relation to E.T. and Close Encounters. The X-Files is also a major influence. Many other films have pondered the implications of discovering aliens, Disclosure Day is a story about the actual moment it happens. What would you do?

Spielberg knows how to take audiences for a ride; the journey is more important than the destination. We also see people connecting - the longing for transcendence is also a recurring theme. The film's journey is emotional, not intellectual - and unabashedly cinematic. 

Sinners (2025)

Ryan Coogler's Sinners is a consistently entertaining mash-up of genres with sharp commentary on race and American history. The ambitious script ventures into musical, fantasy, historical drama, and horror. The film pays homages to its influences, but also a singular work alongside other American epics. Sinners is inn conversation with films like O Brother Where Art Thou? and Django Unchained. As you may infer, the film has a lot going on that may disrupt the tone at times, but it's all impressive modern cinema 

The film stars Michael B. Jordan in dual roles as twin brothers Elijah and Elias, both WWI veterans who became enforcers in the 1920s criminal underworld of Chicago. They return to Clarksdale, Mississippi to open a juke joint from money they ripped off from other gangsters. Back in their hometown they renew some old acquittances, Elijah with his ex-wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), who is a practitioner of Hoodoo, and Elias with ex-girlfriend Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) who passes as white. Their cousin Sammie is a blues prodigy to the dismay of his preacher father who sees the music as evil. Delroy Lindo provides a steady presence as wizened piano player Delta Slim.

I like the idea of a place being an interlocuter between the past and future, and the juke joint serves that story function in Sinners. Juke Joints were a place to celebrate creativity and self-expression away from the daily oppression of the Jim Crow system. Much of what's considered American culture came from such places, innovators from outside mainstream culture. The vampiric nature of cultural appropriation is one of the key metaphors in the film. 

The musical sequences are fantastic, ranging from majestic to the sublime. A blues jam evolves into a history of music, but is matched by the sheer magic of pure blues being played on acoustic guitar. And there's an extended cameo that will delight blues fans all over the world. Delta Slim observes at one point that while white people love the blues, they hate the people who play it. The white characters in the film are all parasitic in some way, understandable since if you were Black in Mississippi in 1932 white supremacy ruled. 

The entire cast is fantastic, led by Michael B. Jordan who is a true move star. His work with Coogler from Fruitvale Station, Creed, and Black Panther mirror De Niro and Scorsese. Everyone in the cast are given memorable moments.

Going by the Box Office, Sinners has struck a cultural nerve at a fraught time. The film is about celebration and joy as defiant acts in the face of a political movement doing everything it can to erase Black history and dismantle any semblance of democracy. Sinners is a reminder there's a dynamic counterforce towards the MAGA impulse. 

****

The Brutalist (2024) ****

The Brutalist boldly attempts to be a modern American epic. It's about many things, architecture, Jewish identity in post-war America, power and wealth, war trauma, and the most importantly the power of art. Directed by Brady Corbett, whose Vox Lux from 2018 I admired, it has narrative breadth of Coppola and the daring character insight of Paul Thomas Anderson films. The tension between art and politics is always simmering beneath the film's surface, vibrating through the narrative. 

Adrien Brody stars as Laszlo Toth, a Jewish architect emigrating to America from Hungary, a survivor of the Dachau concentration camp. He settles in Pennsylvania with a cousin who owns a furniture store, while his wife and niece have yet to escape Europe. We learn Laszlo was a brilliant architect who designed buildings in Budapest which survived the war. His work comes to the attention of wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) and is later commissioned to design an elaborate community center.

Yet the above plot synopsis is superficial and tells little about the film. Laszlo struggles with many things, poverty, his ego, and drug addiction. Life in America is harsh; he deals with many insults and humiliations. He struggles to articulate his artistic visions, resulting in several clashes with his patrons. Van Buren appears to genuinely admire the genius of Laszlo, yet at the same time treats him like a court jester who amuses him. Meanwhile Harrison's spoiled son Harry is another nefarious presence.

The backbone of the story surrounds the struggle to create the community center. Laszlo imagines a modernist structure that will foster community. Inevitably, conflicts develop from all sides. Financial concerns and Harrison's suspect business practices raise red flags, while the return of Lasalo's wife Erzsebet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy) further complicate things, as they are also recovering from the horrors they experienced in Europe. Frustrations drive Laszlo both further away and paradoxically ever closer to finishing the project. 

Jewish identity in post-war America is another major theme. When Laszlo arrives in America the Statue of Liberty is framed upside down, a possible allusion to The Godfather Part II. His cousin Attila has fully assimilated into American life and married to a Catholic woman. Their culture clash leads to a breach in their relationship. Events in Israel are frequently referenced, and his niece wants the family to emigrate. Their dealings with the Harrison family inflame tensions further, and lead to questions on whether Jews are truly welcome in post-war America. 

The Brutalist tells a complex tale in its journey through midcentury America, one full of allusions and doubts, but neither is heroism absent. Brody's performance is both committed and impressive, as are the rest of the cast. The film's rigid anti-nostalgic stance is refreshing, even haunting at times. The score by Daniel Blumberg is both foreboding and majestic. With its overarching themes, many have criticized the film for not living up to the ambition of its ideas, possibly, but there's so much to admire - it's a film that demands reflection. 

****

Wolf Man (2025)

Wolf Man tells a modern werewolf story by focusing on trauma and family dynamics. Not a failure by any means, it's never boring, but never fully delivers either. 

The prologue recalls a childhood memory with protagonist Blake (Christopher Abbott) being taught to hunt by his stentorian father. Now in the present, Blake is a husband and father to Charlotte (Julia Garner) and Ginger (Matilda Firth), while navigating being "in between jobs." Feeling that their marriage is failing, the family decides to return to Blake's childhood home in Oregon after the death of his estranged father. Once they arrive, things quickly take a horrific turn.

The first section does a great job of establishing characters and potential conflicts but then takes an erratic leap. Neither a gorefest nor a study in terror, Wolf Man is at its best on the psychological level, making the story more tragic than frightening. The horror of transformation also becomes a part of the story, something unique to mainstream werewolf movies

As Leigh Whannel's follow up to his well-received Invisible Man from 2020, Wolf Man feels a bit slight in comparison, but it still manages some fresh takes on an old genre. The music score by Benjamin Wallfisch is effective, while the sound design was creative and unnerving. 

***