Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
When Kurosawa's life is at the lowest, when his depression had culminating into a suicide attempt in 1971, an offer came from Soviet Union to finance film on a subject of his choosing, to be shot in Russia.
On this film, Kurosawa adapted the real-life journal by a Russian explorer, Vladimir Arseniev. The story then evolves in and around Captain Arseniev who sent with a team of explorer and cartographer to map the untamed region in the South-West Russian-China border wee-bit North of Vladivostok.
The film was clearly divided in two parts. First part concentrated on Captain Arseniev, a leader of Tzaris expedition team forementioned. On one evening, in the midst of wilderness, almost mistaken as a wild animal in the gloomness of dusk, came out of nowhere as if by apparition the Mongolian tribesman, stout, almost comical but had been known the Siberian wilderness as good as his own backyard. Now this man by the name of "Dersu Uzala", who at first became object of humour by the expedition team, became a sort of tour-guide and quickly achieved the admiration from the team as his extensive knowledge of jungle-wilderness, his deductive prediction upon tracks, had saved their life in many ocassions. Most respect and admiration toward Dersu came none other from the Captain himself as he then stated in his notebook, "Dersu's ingenuity had ultimately save my life from the blizzard-storm on the frozen Siberian lake".
Part two was concentrated on Dersu as his dusk of life approaching. His second meeting with Captain Arseinev then unveiled his corroded ability to stand in the wilderness anymore. We, the audience witnessed through Arseniev's eyes the inability of Dersu to stand in the wild as the dusk of his life approaching, and we felt the same sympathy as Arseniev's was when Dersu denied but inevitably realized that he was indeed grows weak while the wilderness where his life depends on wasn't change at all.
Kurosawa's film was widely known with his deep observation on humanity. On this film, we see the pureness of mutual-friendship represented by Arseniev and Dersu. And of Dersu, we could see the man too noble to stand by as his world is swallowed by the civilization. It also portrayed what men's are against the nature. We see, we may even feel the chillness of Siberian blizzard-storm, the hugeness, the emptiness, the unimportantness of man's presence before nature.
The characters, though natural as it seems were memorable. We soon see the portrait of Dersu in quite the same physical appearance, wisdom, and even the talks in the form of much-better-known Master Yoda in Empire Strikes Back. The Tzarist captain Arseniev though he may seem unimportant, just a little-ingredients to spice up the "friendship" theme brought up by Kurosawa here was like an eye and an ear to me. I see through his eyes, i listen through his ears, i even share the same awe with him as he faced up with the greatness of nature he came upon, and at the same time, as he faced up with the greatness of human represented by Dersu Uzala.
The movie was slow-paced, but well enough -- at least the Boredom Republic is nowhere near your beloved review here -- with long-shots, vivid imagery that overwhelmed the screen. Some say that this is the coldest movie he ever made, and though there's a scene in "Dreams" that may seem a bit colder than this movie, i could agreed that this movie is AMONG the coldest movies ever made. The Blizzard is fascinating.
Rating: **** / **** - Oh yeah, did i already mentioned that this movie won the Oscar for best foreign language film?