rashomonic means involving multiple contradictory accounts.
Why “rashomonic” is a great word
Pertaining to the presentation of a single event through multiple, irreconcilably contradictory accounts. From the title of Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film 'Rashomon', which depicts a single crime through four contradictory witness accounts, plus the adjectival suffix '-ic'. Unlike 'subjective' (which pertains to an individual's perspective) or 'ambiguous' (which describes openness to interpretation), 'rashomonic' denotes the stark, clashing coexistence of several fully-formed narratives. It is the dinner party where three guests remember the argument in three different ways, each certain and each wrong; the family photograph that proves nothing because everyone recalls who stood where differently; the historical record where the same battle becomes heroic defeat or shameful victory depending on the archive consulted. It is the unsettling understanding that truth does not fragment into pieces, but multiplies into incompatible wholes, each one complete, each one a lie.
Etymology
After Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon (1950), in which a crime witnessed by four individuals is described in four mutually contradictory ways; + -ic.
adj
- Involving multiple contradictory accounts.