In postwar era, the development of modernist art and the influence the war brought to people, culturally and socially affect the emergence of art cinema. During this period cinema does not any more have the straight storyline and characters do not have clear-cut persona any longer. Oppositely, filmmakers were trying to search another way to express their inner thought with camera, using multiple-persona characters and complex structure of storyline.
At this point, Rashomon is a good example to illustrate this occurrence, by using parallel storyline to tell a story about complexity and selfishness of humanity. Everyone in this film is a representation of deceit and feign. For example, the robbery lies because he wants to seem strong enough and show his masculinity; the woman lies because she wants to keep an image of her innocence and her faith to her husband; the man lies because he wants to let others respect and honor him after he died; the witness lies because he stole the expensive dagger. As a result, there are four stories of the same affair, which shocked the Buddha and the witness, simultaneously shocking the audiences and showing the fact that people are selfish creatures. If the deepest humanism is dig out and shown in front of people, it is hard to accept the coldness of the fact.
However, at the end of the film, the positive aspect humanism is shown since the witness' adoption of the kid. The hope is lit up again when the heavy rain stopped, and maybe the kid is the representation of the new generation of Japanese after World War II, hope and bright future.
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