Dersu Uzala

This is one of my definite favorites.It tells a story of a man who is one with the wilderness and nature and cant live any other way.Dersu Uzala is an old Goldi(siberian asiatic minority) hunter who thinks he has been cursed after he kills a tiger.To him,every being,every part of the nature is equally worth as humans.

The film gives us accounts of one Russian captain's friendship with Dersu.They are together through thick and thin and Dersu even rescues him from a blizzard when they are stuck on a frozen lake.Dersu has all the natural senses and therefore knows when he is in danger.He knows everything by looking and observing the landscape around him.

So when he kills the tiger,its like a spell has been cast on him.Or is it just his imagination?His people believe in a ghost that rules the taiga,Kanga.He thinks Kanga will punish him in some way.Soon his fears start to get real.He cant kill his prey for food that he needs for living because his eyesight dramatically worsens.One frightening night(my favorite scene) it gets too much for him,listening to the howling wind in the dark,waiting for Kanga to send a tiger to kill him.And captain Arseniev,seeing the horror that struck him,offers him to come with him to his hometown.It happens so.

Throughout the film,you cant help but wonder what will happen to Dersu.Not only because in the beginning Arseniev searches for his grave,in retrospection,but also because he is one lonely,sad man who lives only by hunting.There is no place for him but the taiga.And when the tragedy happens,its hard not to feel remorse and pity the old Dersu.His world has come crashing down.The end specially is painful and shows that there is no mercy in this world for a man who falls from grace in his own homeground.

In the end,this film has outstanding photography,outstanding music,outstanding cast,beautiful scenery and do i need to say anything about the director? A timeless work that can never be surpassed.

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.

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.

On the face of it, Dersu Uzala would not seem like a candidate for a great film. The story is about a young Russian (Imperial Russia) officer is sent to the far east of Siberia to explore. He meets with a native of the region and they form a bond together. The territory in question is the wild, rugged eastern Siberia (north of Valdivostok). I would say that you have not lived until you have seen what Kurosawa can do filming nature in its raw splendor and magnificence. The scenes in this film like the wind rushing through the tall reeds, or the mist draping the forested hills, are images of haunting beauty.

Kurosawa, one of the greatest film directors of the 20th century, made his final masterpiece with film. The characters are well drawn, the sub-text of the story (the clash of civilization vs. nature) is nuanced, but most of all it is the wild beauty of nature which is the focus of this film. Once you see it, I don't think you will forget it, I know I never have.

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.