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Dersu Uzala Actors: Maksim Munzuk, Yuri Solomin Director: Akira Kurosawa Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Letterbox Format: Color, Widescreen Audience Rating: G (General Audience) Running Time: 140 minutes Studio: Image Entertainment Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2002-05-23 Buy from Amazon |
 "Like my Wife's Grandfather, and Other Alaskans I've Met"If there is one movie that should be seen over every year, this is it! It reminds us of the tenuous relationship between cultures based on survival in the natural world and those based on mankind's invented structures, and how easily respect for the former can be lost by the later. I've been privileged to live in similar country and encounter similar people, who, like Dersu, I reacted to much as the Russian Captain. My wife, a Tlingit Indian, also says Dersu reminds her very much of her grandfather. "Great film, but don't expect any sword fights"A brilliant film, and winner of the Best Foreign Film Academy Award. The title character is an outdoorsy Mongolian who is a little bit... eccentric. Some Soviets recruit him for a survaying mission. The Russians dismiss him as a hopeless savage and are, in classic form, proved wrong through his deeds. Rest assured that the Kurosawa camera for focus on the visual splendor that the stark winter landscapes and the dense forests have to offer. Just as the wilderness offers a majestic stillness, so too do the widescreen compositions. The elegance and simplicity of style are directly related to the subject matter. This will be a welcome addition to any film lovers library, and a must for any Kurosawa fan. "friendship"Nature is grand in Dersu Uzala, but the monumental achievement of this Kurosawa classic is his deeply-moving portrait of a friendship. Two men, so different, each independent and self-sufficient, but forming through their shared adventures and love of the earth a bond of trust and affection that radiants the very splendour of being a human being. Changed circumstances hurry us towards mortality, but nothing can deny the transcendent truth of such a friendship. "A truly beautiful and tragic story"When I first saw this movie I had never seen a foreign movie before, nor had I ever heard of Kurosawa. I can now not get enough of perhaps the greatest director ever! The photography in this movie is incredible. The relationship between Dersu and the captain is very enveloping. They draw you into this picture hook, line, and sinker. This is a modern day classic and was well deserving of the oscar it won. "Stark, Gorgeous, and as unlike YOJIMBO as anything could be"Having seen Kurosawa's magfnificent samurai classics THE SEVEN SAMURAI, YOJIMBO, and SANJURO, this movie came as a bit of a shock. Don't let the running time fool you, though, this movie is magnificent. The story of a Russian explorer in eastern Siberia who befriends a Goldi (I guess; from the movie, I thought he was Buryat) trapper named Dersu Uzala, this is a movie that takes its time. Dersu and the explorer gradually form a bond that actually ends up extending to the explorer's boorish subordinates. This is a wonderful movie, and, judging from the cinematography, anyone in this country who figured Siberia would be an awful time might apparently want to try it during the summer... |
