Dersu Uzala

It's 1902. Russian army explorer Captain Arseniev leads an expedition into the Siberian wilderness. They encounter local native hunter Dersu Uzala and recruit him as their guide.

It's a Soviet film made by the legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. I'm not sure how that happened. Quite frankly, I watched the first hour without knowing about Kurosawa and was going to write that this is the best filmmaking out of the Soviet Union. The movie is over two hours and it does need to find a road map for their journey. I'm not saying that it lacks direction. It has an emotional direction. It's about the two men's relationship. I would like for more scenes of the two of them alone. They should have more heart to heart dialogue. Dersu is a great character. For example, I love the grass shelter and the two men are alone in survival mode. I'm also surprised by the tiger. The second half holds some interesting surprises. This is an interesting page in a legend's work. It won an Oscar.

A wonderful film. It showcases the natural beauty of the Taiga and presents a contrast between the technological and the pastoral. Dersu is one with the forest. He knows its ways and its moods. The Russians scoff at his ways and his 'primitive' belief system, but eventually come to rely on him, and even love him. It is a beautiful story that takes place in an world that very few of us in the West have had a chance to see. I thought the fact that the film was set in the pre-revolutionary period gave it a peculiar sort of charm - Russia before the Great War and the Russian Revolution was innocent and even naive, the same way the Russian soldiers were innocent of the wonders and the dangers of the Taiga. One of the things I loved most about this film was the cinematography - there are long, lingering shots of the landscape, the endless steppe, the forest, the rivers, the mountains. We believe ourselves to be powerful because we have been moderately successful in our attempts to harness nature for our own uses, but the film shows us that we are deluding ourselves, that nature cannot be controlled or resisted, and the truly powerful are those, like Dersu, who co-exist in harmony with nature and learn what the wilderness teaches.

..and his name was Akira Kurosawa. Once upon a time there was a simple man: a hunter, and simple story of friendship and reflection about life. Once upon a time a magnificent director and film crew have put a beautiful story on the screen with such perfection, that in our days we look back and we wonder: why movies like this are not being made anymore??

It doesn't matter if you like any other Kurosawa's works or any other 'Russian' films, because this one would touch you so much that you would go back and looked for similar films… I wish I could see this film in all his beauty: on a big screen, in the original format (70 mm), as I felt that I missed a lot of details from the TV format.

There are directors and there is Kurosawa, there are dramas and there are Russian stories, so when you put both of them together, what do you get? Dersu Uzala!

Enjoy it, at least as much I did

This 1975 joint Japanese-Russian film is a celebration of simple virtues, friendship, loyalty, love, and respect for nature. Based on the journals of the Tsarist explorer and surveyor, Captain Vladimir Arseniev, it is the story of the relationship between Captain Arseniev and an Asiatic hunter of the Goldi tribe named Dersu Uzala. With a love and understanding of the forest that is extraordinary, Dersu guides the Captain through several deadly encounters. He saves the Captain's life by building a shelter out of reeds during a ferocious wind storm. Maksim's performance as Dersu, the ancient woodsman, is very "Yoda-like": wonderous, dignified, and very natural.

The friendship between the two main characters grows over many years and several expeditions in the wild. Their relationship is beautifully developed and moves to an inevitable climax when Dersu and the Captain move back to the Captain's home in the city.

There is in this film a sense of the beauty, tranquility, and timelessness of nature. It takes place at a time in the early part of the last century when people had closer ties with nature and felt a kinship with animals, plants, and the elements. Dersu endearingly refers to all elements of nature including the river, the wind, the trees, and the animals as "men". As the English writer, Hugh Trevor-Roper said of Shakespeare so it is true of Dersu, "He sees mankind almost as part of nature, sometimes basking in a delightful, smiling Nature; sometimes caught up in a fierce, cruel, inexorable, insatiable Nature".

I was totally absorbed in this film and in its regard for the essential goodness of man and the beauty of the natural world. Dersu Uzala is a great film from one of the all-time masters.

Dersu Uzala is slow, serene, beautiful, but nevertheless gripping. It tells of the friendship between a nomadic Siberian native and a Russian army explorer, and how the former is able to help the latter and his team to negotiate the many obstacles presented by the Siberian wilderness. We see how traditional survival methods and intrinsic common sense can help the more urbanised army men to cope with the extremes of climate and geography. Eventually the nomad is persuaded to join the general on his trip back to a town. His ignorance of urban life is apparent, but interesting nevertheless, as we do not imagine such people nor meet them in everyday life today. Kurosawa is on top form here, letting the camera take in the vastness of Siberia, and still allowing the viewers to observe the characters closely. The story is interesting too, with a sadly ironic ending (won't say any more!). I think everybody should watch this film, because everybody will have something to learn from it.