Akira Kurosawa' s "Dersu Uzala" is a cinematic treasure chest. Last night I had the good fortune of viewing a rare print at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum. As a historian I have profound respect for Archives. The UCLA film & television archive has an extensive catalogue of rare films. The Archive was having a centennial celebration of Kurosawa. Getting a clear print of Dersu Uzala on dvd is almost impossible. King Video, Mosfilm, the former Soviet Union, and Japan have all been tangled in bueracratic red tape to work with Criterion to distribute the movie to dvd and honor, arguably the best motion picture Kurosawa ever shot. In revisiting the picture last night some things became apparent.
The background history on the film is quite intense. Akira Kurosawa had just tried to commit suicide a few months before the cameras started rolling. The Japanese studios would no longer fund the aueter because his condition was a security risk. So he looked for funding elsewhere and the Soviet Union welcomed the master with open arms and financed the picture. The shoot took place for two years and when I saw the shots last night it still looked impossible.
"Dersu Uzala" is my personal favorite Kurosawa picture. I realize this is a bold statement, but allow me to state my case. There is no film in the history of cinema that is similar to "Dersu Uzala" and the story is quite unique. The narrative structure reminds me of a western, but mainly is about friendship. Captain Vladimir Arseniev is a Russian surveyor for the army. His duty is to chart all of the remote and unexplored regions of Russia. The regions represent the frontier. The unknown, the daunitng, and the bitter cold. In looking at Soviet history the Transibberean Railroad wasn't completed until Stalin utilized slave labor from the gulag. Without the railroad traveling the entire distance across the Soviet Union was almost impossible.
So Captain Vladimir Arseniev is given one hell of an assignment. Survey Siberia and chart the regions no one has ever seen from Moscow. The film is set in 1900. One night out in the frontier with his troops around the campfire, Arseniev is visited by a man who is one tough son of a bitch.
He comes up to the campfire where he gets a lit twig and starts smoking his pipe. He does not say how are you doing? He yells at the fire and speaks to it as a living being. Then he asks Arseniev for food. The man, the myth, the legend, is none other than Mr. Dersu Uzala. Arseniev complies and an amazing friendship ensues. Through the elements comrades for life are developed.
My personal favorite scene is when the winds start whipping across the Siberian landscape and the arctic tundra goes on as far as the eye can see. Dersu and Captain Arseniev are all alone. They have lost there way and everything looks the same. In frontier American history this happened many times to the Frontier Army and buffalo hunters in the Great Plains region during a snow storm. In "Dersu Uzala" the music Kurosawa provides starts building the tension as the sun starts to set on the Siberian landscape. Last night at the Billy Wilder theater many people in the audience started to put there coats on during this scene. The wind howls and the snow flurries start swirling. Dersu and Captain Arseniev start cutting down grass, cat tails, and reeds, to form a hut for warmth. Watching this scene when Siberia looks overwhelmed with nature and two men work frantically for survival is amazing. It's one of my favorite scenes of all time in cinema. On the same level as the steamboat being dragged over the mountain in "Fitzcaraldo." There is no CGI and Kurosawa captures the shots of an endless ocean of ice and tundra during a snowstorm at sunset. The colors are some of the most unique in film history and the way the wind swirls against the landscape is magical. The tundra looks similar to sand at the ocean. Cheers Kurosawa and happy centennial! You just reached the Summit of Cinema!
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