Format: DVD from NetFlix on various players.
I make no secret of my love for the films of Akira Kurosawa. I’ve said before that my favorite Kurosawa film is the last one of his films that I’ve seen. Sadly, this is a trend that stops with my viewing of Dersu Uzala. This is not to say that this isn’t a great film or a film that shouldn’t be treasured. I just didn’t like it as much as I do the other Kurosawa films I’ve seen. I want to stress, though, that up to this point, Kurosawa has been a nearly perfect director in my estimation; Dersu Uzala not living up to that impossibly high standard is not at all a knock on it.
A group of Russians in the first years of the 20th century have been charged with making a topographic survey of a part of the Russian wilderness. They are led by Captain Vladimir Arseniev (Yuri Solomin). On their expedition they encounter a man named Dersu Uzala (Maksim Munzuk) who lives in the forest and survives as a hunter. Dersu’s family is gone and he has no home, but survives as comfortably as he needs to. The soldiers soon recognize that the mountain man is very skilled and knowledgeable and ask him to be their guide for the rest of their expedition. Dersu has a number of practices that suggest a great deal of respect for his world and for others; he asks for food to be left in temporary shelters for other people who wander through, for instance.
