This review is dedicated to MS members who’ve been conducting MS meets all over India, and keep posting the colorful accounts of what transpired at those meets. It has become a tradition that every member who attends any such city meet has to compulsorily write at least one review on it . One common binding point about these MS mets, besides them getting posted under wrong topics is - it provides an interesting spectrum of views different persons have about the meet.
Let me take the example of the recent meet in Kolkota. Per the first version posted by the Lotus man Abuj, we learn mimi_mou - whom we imagined to be garrulous, turned out to be the most silent participant. Mimi disputed the claim by claiming another participant Snigdha was silent too. Soon Snigdha posted a clarification that she probably was, but not as much as Mimi. Since Dude didn’t participate in the meet, he doesn’t know which version of it really transpired that day. Since God doesn’t talk to Dude, and Flying Elephant has maintained a stoic silence [ probably to avoid another MS civil war?] truth remains anybodys-guess. May be they were all right? Or perhaps all wrong?
An example of’Rashomon Effect’ in play - different individuals preceiving the same event in a different way. It inspired Dude to overcome his chronic lethargy, and watch Akira Kurosawas’ masterpice which he had avoided watching all these long years.
*Rashomon, The Movie
*Dude’s guess is more people have heard about the movie than actually seen it. For starters, it’s a Black & White movie. The language is Japanese. It doesn’t boast those cool CGI effects. It’s one of those hard to get in a movie library flicks.
Since Dude hasn’t seen much of Kurosawa, it can’t be claimed to be his THE BEST, but will definitely and safely considered in the list of his best movies. To be fair, one of THE BEST movies seen by Dude so far.
It’s a short film by Kurosawa standards [ Seven Samurai - 3 hours+] of only 88 minutes duration. The story is also simple, it’s the narration - or rather narrations - that make it extraordinary . A bandit aroused by the beauty of a travelling Samurai’s wife, dupes her husband and rapes her. Her husbands body is found by a wood cutter. Bandit is captured and brought before the law.
Three different versions of the events are narrated by the Bandit, Raped woman and the Dead Man(speaking through a medium). Each version totally contradicts the other versions. A fourth version of the same story is revealed by the Woodcutter who was actually a witness to the events [ a fact hidden by him to avoid legal troubles]. These 4 versions are heard by a Buddhist monk and a way farer, who are stuck up in a Rashomon temple [ temple of ancestral spirits] with the woodcutter, due to incessant rains [ rain is like another character in Kurosawa movies]
Rashomon Effect
Kurosawa doesn’t show that any of these versions were entirely correct or entirely wrong. May be they are all correct, and at the same time all wrong, depending on our own perception. In that aspect’Rashomon’ challenges the existence of absolute Truth and it’s spiritual ramifications. If there is no Truth in this world, are we living in a self-serving, self-centerd and amoral World? Or is the world worth living as there are good perceptions to balance bad perceptions, and optimistic perception to balance pessimistic ones?
Reminded Dude of a story from Mahabharat, about the evil prince Duryodhana and good prince Yudhishtir. While particiapating in a test by their Guru, the good prince found the citizens of Hastinapur to be all chaste do-gooders; while the evil prince found the same people to be corrupt bad persons.
Our personality colors our perceptions. Our perceptions color’our Truth’.