Part of Akira Kurosawa: A Retrospective
A moving humanist epic set in the snowy Siberian wilderness, Akira Kurosawa’s only film in Russian — the result of an invitation from the Soviet production company Mosfilm — is the story of a friendship that develops between a Russian explorer and a native hunter named Dersu Uzala. On a topographical survey expedition, Captain Vladimir Arsenyev and company are immediately taken by the good nature and wisdom of a native Nanai tribesman — who, as their new guide, proves invaluable and indeed a life-saver.
An adaptation of Captain Arsenyev’s 1923 memoir, DERSU UZALA would be the filmmaker’s third and last film to have been adapted from Russian literature (see also: THE IDIOT, THE LOWER DEPTHS). After a series of perceived disappointments, DERSU UZALA breathed new life into the filmmaker and won the Academy Award in 1976 for Best Foreign Language Film, ushering in a triumphant final stage of his career marked by lavish productions — and represented in this retrospective by RAN and DREAMS.
“Shot on location over a period of nine months, it's an elegiac film of great visual and spiritual beauty.” —Philip French, Guardian “The Kurosawa fan may at first be disappointed by the lack of the violent physical action usually found in a Kurosawa film, but a closer look reveals that the action is still there — it has just been internalized in the case of human beings and appears visually more in the changes of winds and seasons and temperatures, and the struggle for life of the animals who live in vastness of Siberia. The violence is most certainly there — it is just quieter and more omnipotent. —Don Denny, Japan Times (Aug 9, 1975)
