Dersu Uzala

Akira Kurosawa’s career arc says something about the respect afforded ‘pantheon, auteur’ directors as the world film industry changed. When great directors acquired international reputations in the 1950s, the best-known and most widely shown Japanese director was Akira Kurosawa. But his long association with Toho ended with 1965’s Red Beard, interrupting his creative output. When Kurosawa’s well-publicized involvement with the U.S. co-production  Tora! Tora! Tora!  fell apart the director was blamed — but biographer Stuart Galbraith IV has a more credible explanation.

His subsequent independent feature Dodes’ka-den was a financial disaster, and precipitated a serious depression that included a suicide attempt. Rescue came with an offer from Mosfilm, the biggest movie studio in the Soviet Union. Kurosawa was able to film his pet project Dersu Uzala as a major 70mm production, under favorable working conditions. It was his show all the way, including choice of film and casting. Within budgetary limits he could do whatever he wanted.

Kurosawa’s choice of projects surprised the Soviets: a book by Russian explorer and topographer Vladimir Arseniev, who between 1903 and 1910 surveyed vast regions of Eastern Siberia. Kurosawa had years before read the book translated into Japanese, and wanted to film it. “Dersu Uzala” is the name of the Ussurian native guide who befriended Arseniev and helped him in his travels in the wild.

The very unusual co-production was a one-of-a-kind item. Kurosawa brought along only a few Japanese crewmembers, including a long-time cameraman and a producer-assistant. Shooting took over a year to accomplish on location in the wild taiga forests Southeast of Vladivostok. It was shot in 70mm, and premiered that way in several countries outside the Soviet Union . . . but not Japan, curiously enough. It won the best Foreign Film Oscar, but distributors didn’t line up for the U.S. rights. Roger Corman’s exploitation company New World had begun distributing foreign arthouse pictures by Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini. The enthusiastic Corman gave Dersu Uzala a decent release in 1975, if only in reduced 35mm version.

The story of Dersu Uzala is simple enough. Army Captain Arseniev (Yuriy Solomin) leads a pack train of soldiers through immense uncharted Siberian forests, carrying surveying equipment to make maps. When the group encounters a curious little ‘Goldi’ tribesman, they first mistake him for an eccentric hermit. Dersu Uzala (Maksim Munzuk) turns out to be exactly what the expedition needs, an experienced hunter and tracker who knows the region. He has unlimited knowledge about survival in the wild. The moment Dersu shows the Russians how to recognize a trail they can follow, he becomes indispensible. He can even accurately predict when the weather will change. He has more strength and stamina than his Russian comrades, a quality we understand without dialogue pointing it out, as in John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

The adventures that follow do involve some dramatic confrontations, notably with wild animals and Chinese bandits. But the narrative format is not ‘high adventure thrills.’ Dersu instead teaches the Russian expedition a different philosophy about living in the wild. He has them help repair the roof of a hut he has constructed. Dersu has apparently been building the huts everywhere for 40 years; even though they have no intention of coming back, he asks them to leave food inside for ‘the next traveller.’ In addition to his selfless ‘be good to others’ credo, Dersu’s worldview preaches that everything is alive — water, fire, wind, sun. All must be respected because all can kill.

Dersu has been alone for 40 years. But he isn’t bitter, and even the ordinary soldiers grow to respect his wisdom. When they shoot at a bottle on a string for fun, Dersu objects to the waste. He wins the bottle in a bet — out in the forest, such a useful object is precious.

One extended set piece episode shows Dersu saving Arseniev’s life during a howling storm, where there seems no possibility of avoiding death by exposure. Later on, Dersu is incensed when they discover an abandoned series of game traps, some with dead and rotting animals, and some with deer still alive. To Dersu the idea of killing more than one can eat is blasphemous. The expedition’s encounter with Chinese bandits mainly involves rescuing some of their victims. Dersu’s local militia friends take over the pursuit from there. When it’s time to go to Vladivostok, there’s a fond farewell — Dersu knows well that he doesn’t belong in a city.

The adventure picks up on another expedition four years later, when Arseniev is delighted to again encounter Dersu. This time things are different, as the guide’s eyesight isn’t what it was. He becomes testy and bitter. A fearful encounter with a tiger leaves Dersu feeling cursed — he’s made a mistake and he thinks other tigers will be hunting him now. Arseniev offers his good friend a place in his home in a Russian settlement, and this time Dersu accepts. But the arrangement just won’t work out. The rough woodsman chafes against city ways — he doesn’t understand arbitrary rules, and in other ways he’s quite defenseless.

Fans approaching Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala need an open mind — it is not a tightly scripted outdoor thriller like the classic The Seven Samurai or The Hidden Fortress. The show is instead an expansive meditation set way out in the wild. The big scenes show ‘conflict with nature’ in simple, non-action terms. The scene of Arseniev and Dersu’s desperate fight against freezing relies not on cutting or special effects, but in presenting a credible physical context. It plays out in a high wind, with a real sun sinking to the horizon — if they can’t prepare a shelter in time, they’re finished.

Kurosawa is a master of montage editing and exacting compositions, but in this show he doesn’t rely on them to keep up audience interest. Our introduction to the forest is simply a series of telephoto shots of treetops blowing in the wind. To us ‘civilized’ viewers, the shots might as well be abstract patterns. It’s an expedition into a different mindset.

In the many shots of Arseniev’s pack train picking its way through the forest we simply have no idea where we are. Would a map even help?  We begin to accept Kurosawa’s montages of hostile landscapes as challenges that no man can conquer. A series of shots of churning ice floes needs nothing more — it’s a sobering death trap. The only sustained, somewhat conventional action scene shows an emergency at a river crossing. Their raft falls apart, and Kurosawa’s rapid trucking shots race down the shore to cover the rescue. The men must improvise to save Dersu, who clings to a mid-river rock in a strong current. The actor playing Dersu is in his ’60s and it appears to really be him in the cold water. Just how real were the dangers on this show?

We soon accept Dersu Uzala as a meditation about friendship and shared humanity. Arseniev and Dersu have more in common than they realize, and a genuine warmth grows, with mutual respect. The real-life fable is divorced from politics — the utopian idea of universal comradeship is there, but also a realization that men have limits. The ‘natural man’ Dersu is unequipped to deal with the compromises and cruelties of city life. The show is pro-ecology and sceptical of civilized development, but not militantly so.