Rashomon

Nobody does rain like Kurosawa. Think of the downpour that drenches the combatants towards the end of Seven Samurai. Rashomon too features a spectacular example, as rain lashes down around the three men sheltering under the eponymous gate. It's the sort of rain one can imagine causing cataclysmic floods, yet it also acts as a catalyst, bringing those 3 characters together and setting the story in motion. The rain of the framing story also provides a sharp contrast with the sunlight and palpable heat (the shifting shadows of the forest; the sweat glistening on Mifune's skin) of the flashbacks. In a similar manner the three main settings contrast with each other: the derelict gate, the almost-otherworldly forest and the dry, dusty yard of the trail. The viewer is intensely aware of both place and the elements, a rich backdrop for the main story.
The film of course is famous for the contradictory testimonies about what transpired in that forest. The only fixed points are the rape of a woman and the death of a man. Everything else is constantly in flux depending on whose viewpoint we see. The complexity only begins to emerge with the second testimony, the wife's. The bandit's version has been entirely plausible, but the next narration overturns that interpretation. The husband's death now no longer happens during a duel, but mysteriously after the bandit leaves, the suggestion being it was suicide. Nor is he any longer sympathetic and noble, but a man who immediately turns on his wife with loathing after her rape. And what of his version? Doubly unreliable, it's filtered through a medium (an oddly creepy sequence) and this time it's the wife who's portrayed as unsympathetic, driving her husband to suicide and eternal darkness. Truth it appears is as elusive as the light and shadows playing across the forest, making everything appear in motion. With truth such a slippery concerpt, can we even believe the woodcutter's version of events where everyone is seriously flawed and the death is more farce than tragedy. Certainly the commoner doesn't think so. He shows the woodcutter to be a thief and would say it's merely the way of the world - people lie for their own advantage. Yet, it's the desperately poor woodcutter who offers hope. He's willing to take the abandoned baby, reasoning that with six children already one more won't make a difference, whereas the commoner only steals the items left with it. As the priest rediscovers faith in mankind, the rain finally relents ...