How could they know that Rashomon would become an allegory of the trial of an American president. Kurosawa reminds us that truth depends on the telling. Someone must step forward and tell that truth. In Kurosawa's film narrative, three travelers seek shelter inside a crumbling public monument called Rashomon the once-great gate of an ancient city of Japan that has fallen on hard times. Two of the men, a priest and a wood-cutter, have just given testimony in a capital case.
Some facts are undisputed.
The priest testifies that he met an armed samurai and his wife, traveling by horseback along a road. The woodcutter testifies that he found the wife's hat, pieces of rope, and the samurai's body in the forest. The sheriff testifies that he arrested Tajomaru, a notorious bandit, riding the samurai's horse. Yet interpretations of those facts are shaky. Indeed, Kurosawa uses the same details to justify four entirely different versions of what happened in the woods.