Dersu Uzala
by Akira Kurosawa
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DVD details
Actor: Dmitri Korshikov, Maksim Munzuk, Suimenkul Chokmorov, Svetlana Danilchenko, Yuri SolominDirector: Akira Kurosawa
Brand: Kino Video
Cinematographer: Asakazu Nakai
Cinematographer: Fyodor Dobronravov
Cinematographer: Yuri Gantman
Writer: Akira Kurosawa
Producer: Nikolai Sizov
Producer: Y?ichi Matsue
Writer: Vladimir Arsenyev
Writer: Yuri Nagibin
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: Russian (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 2.35:1
Running Time: 144 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-09-02
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Kino Video
DVD Reviews of Dersu Uzala
DVD Review: A story of friendship, not of exploration or of Siberia
Summary: 5 Stars
Kurosawa needs no praise from me, but... In Dersu Uzala he once again does a wonderful job of examining universal human experience while reveling in the particulars of place, time, and character. And the cinematography is rich. This is an excellent movie. I avoided watching it for a long time because descriptions and trailers made it appear to be a movie about the bleakness of Siberia. In fact, it is a movie about friendship, and much of it takes place in the summer in a forest.
If you have enjoyed other Kurosawa films but avoided Dersu, don't. You won't regret watching it.
DVD Review: Someday I may rate it five stars.
Summary: 4 Stars
Someday I may rate this film five stars. I don't mean that to be a flip statement, but a reflection of the fact that sometimes our opinions have to be aged a bit before we can feel we have a firm understanding of the merits of a work of art. At this point I feel sure "Dersu Uzala" is an outstanding film, one in which I am willing to invest more attention to see if my appreciation grows. The reasons I think it may take time to fully appreciate this movie? There seem to me to be a lot of things suggested by symbolism in the film that are not overtly explained or clarified by action or dialogue. But, on the other hand, I may be misreading the symbolism or reading too much into it. Thus, the need for further investigation. For instance, I get a strong impression that the characters in the movie more or less all represent ideas or aspects of humanity larger than themselves. I think many reviewers have mentioned that this film was Kurosawa's first effort following a suicide attempt caused by rejection of some of his previous films. Knowing this fact alone would make you tend to suspect there might be traces of this spiritual struggle embodied as artistic statement in Dersu Uzala. The very fact that this story takes place in a wilderness, a place where you can easily become lost or disoriented, could have some connection to Kurosawa's state of mind when he attempted suicide. In an early scene the Russian explorers feel a sense of oppression at the desolation and loneliness of the landscape, which seems to harbor a malevolent force within it. At night their campfire weirdly illuminates the twisted tree branches and suggests a witches sabbath to the Russian captain. It seems reasonable to me there could be an identification here with the condition of soul Kurosawa had recently endured. Then, out of the darkness comes Dersu, a gnomish, rotund, archaic being full of practical wisdom, who becomes a guide and saviour for the fumbling Russians. Dersu seems to be an archtypal figure. Is he, perhaps, a personification of a spiritual force which Kurosawa summoned from his own inner being, a primeval instinct and will for survival? That is the primary concept which suggested itself to me as I watched the film, but of course, other interpretations are possible, and I may well be off the mark. The point is, though, that there is a subtlety to this story which suggests more than the somewhat simple surface story of a band of Russian cartographers exploring the Siberian wilderness, guided by a colorful aboriginal hunter. It is also well-known that Kurosawa lavished incredible attention on every scene to produce the effects he wanted, so it is likely there are very few noticeable details in this film that are not there for a very specific reason. Our attention is specifically directed to the way in which Dersu views the entire world of nature as being animated by spirit; how his harmony with the environment allows him to gather information from natural phenomena; and how this contrasts with the unappreciative and unobservant Russians, who, I would hazard a guess, represent civilized man more than Russians per se. I think it is important to try to see how the visual representation of the story might reinforce any of these concepts. I was somewhat surprised there were not more sweeping panoramic shots of the wilderness. For the most part, the camera view stays confined to a perspective of how we might see the people in the film if we were traveling with them. The main focus is on humans and their immediate surroundings. That there are few facial closeups seemed to me to reinforce the idea that he was not so much dealing with individuals as universals. All this is speculation, but these hints lead me to think that eventually a deeper and more comprehensive appreciation for the movie will settle out in my mind. For me, it will take more viewings to resolve this question. I may decide I was deluding myself about deeper meanings, but I am sure that the film can be enjoyed even on a surface level. Most people, I think, would be charmed by the friendship that arises between the refined Russian captain and the primitive hunter, with his earthy wisdom and basic decency. But viewed strictly as an adventure story, many folks used to the frenetic pace of modern Hollywood films might find the going pretty slow.DVD Review: I want to correct some reviewers
Summary: 4 Stars
I hesitated to buy this movie due to criticisms on it's visual quality. I bought it anyway because it was Kurosawa. I'm glad I did. For the most part, the transfer was fine. There were scenes which appeared fogged, but that was because it was shot in fog and/or extreme cold conditions. The rest of the time I couldn't find what other reviewers were complaining about. An interesting study of two men from completely different backgrounds who grow to respect and love each other. My only negative comment is that I couldn't activate an added feature.DVD Review: A classic remastered
Summary: 5 Stars
This was one of my all time favorite movies. What a treat to get to own it on DVD. There is a small amount of poor quality at the beginning, but the rest is fine.DVD Review: Interesting, but not his strongest work.
Summary: 3 Stars
Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa, 1975)
As much as I understand the importance of Akira Kurosawa in the greater language of film, I have to say that I've never really gotten his movies the way other people seem to; Rashomon is a movie I've watched a number of times trying to glean what it is that makes it, as many critics would have it, one of the hundred finest films ever made, and I just can't wrap my head around it. It's a good movie, to be sure, but I guess I'm missing something. I felt the same way about Dersu Uzala, now that I've seen it for the first time; I enjoyed it well enough, but nothing about it struck me as being for the ages.
Uzala himself (Maksim Munzuk) is a woodsman, who makes his living trapping and serving as a guide in the wilds of Taiga. He is hired by Vladimir Arseniev (Yuri Solomin), a captain in the Russian army, as a guide, and the two form a friendship during their time together that is renewed on occasion as the two run into each other. The real plot of the story develops when Dersu Uzala develops cataracts; with his eyesight getting worse and worse, his continued survival in the woods becomes untenable, and so Arseniev offers to put up Dersu, who's never lived anywhere but the woods, in his house in the city. Cue culture clash.
Dersu Uzala won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1975, beating out such luminaries as Wajda's The Promised Land and Kumai's Sandikan 8. I'm glad I wasn't a member of the Academy at that time; that would've been a tough call. (For the record, I should mention I'm not a member now, either.) I'm relatively sure I would've gone for one of the others, though; as I said above, Dersu Uzala is a good film, interesting if a bit slow to get to the real meat of the matter, but nothing about it grabbed me in the way slow films sometimes do (a perfect example of this is the work of Bela Tarr, in which nothing at all happens most of the time, but I can't tear my eyes away from the screen). Kurosawa gives us interesting, well-acted characters in a fantastic framework, and with some of the more stunning scenery I've come across in recent months, but there's that ineffable something about Kurosawa's movies that I just don't grasp. And I still don't know why. ***
Description of Dersu Uzala
Against a backdrop of the treacherous mountains, rivers and icy plains of the Siberian wilderness, acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (The Seven Samurai, Rashomon) stages an extraordinary adventure of comradeship and survival. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.During an unusual chapter in the career of director Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon), the filmmaker went to Russia because he found working in his native Japan to be too difficult. The result was this striking 1975 near-epic based on the turn-of-the-century autobiographical novels of a military explorer (Yuri Solomin) who met and befriended a Goldi man in Russia's unmapped forests. Kurosawa traces the evolution of a deep and abiding bond between the two men, one civilized in the usual sense, the other at home in the sub-zero Siberian woods. There's no question that Dersu Uzala (the film is named for the Goldi character, played by Maxim Munzuk) has the muscular, imaginative look of a large-canvas Soviet Mosfilm from the 1970s. But in its energy and insight it is absolutely Kurosawa, from its implicit fascination with the meeting of opposite worlds to certain moments of tranquility and visual splendor. But nothing looks like Kurosawa more than a magnificent action sequence in which the co-heroes fight against time and exhaustion to stay alive in a wicked snowstorm. For fans of the late legend, this is a Kurosawa not to be missed. --Tom Keogh
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