The 1970s was not a particularly happy decade for Akira Kurosawa, Japan's foremost film director. It started with his being taken off of helming the Japanese sequences for the ambitious U.S./Japan co-production of TORA! TORA! TORA! (1970), was followed by the critical and box-office disappointment of his first film to be shot in color DODES'KA-DEN (1970) and culminated in a horrible wrist-slashing suicide attempt which, thankfully, failed! All of this, however, ensured the consequent dissolution of a recently-formed partnership with other major Japanese film-makers namely Kon Ichikawa, Keinosuke Kinoshita and Masaki Kobayashi.
It's not all that surprising, then, that Kurosawa wandered off to Russia for his next venture but it is doubly ironic that his sole work away from his home-ground and made during such a lean creative period would eventually win him the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award! Among the other contenders for that honor were Dino Risi's SCENT OF A WOMAN and Andrzej Wajda's PROMISED LAND, but it was this slow-moving adventure redeemed by its stunning visual splendor (in spite of the color fluctuation in the battered Kino print I watched!) which emerged triumphant.
Not top-flight Kurosawa, then, but generally compelling nevertheless and providing a good balance between his trademark humanism (although the majority of the Russians are tritely depicted as fun-loving and rather immature) and action (a scuffle with bandits, a river rescue, a tiger hunt). The best sequence in the entire film is a spectacular blizzard which bonds together trapper/guide Dersu Uzala (remarkably played by Maxim Munzuk) and the narrating Russian captain (Yuri Solomin).
This clash of cultures, therefore, turns into a celebration of friendship with its succession of dramatic, poignant, even humorous vignettes. Dersu's incompatibility with modern civilization an oft-used device during this particular era in cinema brings to mind THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER (1975) and THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980); curiously, all three films were inspired by real events (DERSU UZALA being based on his companion Vladimir Andreyev's memoirs, and which had been adapted for TV during the previous decade).
By the way, knowing George Lucas' fondness for Kurosawa, the amiable and pint-sized titular character here who has an awkward way with words but displays infinite wisdom throughout may well have inspired the puppet Yoda from the "Star Wars" saga! Curiously enough, the film itself was distributed in the U.S. by none other than Roger Corman's New World company!!
It's not all that surprising, then, that Kurosawa wandered off to Russia for his next venture but it is doubly ironic that his sole work away from his home-ground and made during such a lean creative period would eventually win him the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award! Among the other contenders for that honor were Dino Risi's SCENT OF A WOMAN and Andrzej Wajda's PROMISED LAND, but it was this slow-moving adventure redeemed by its stunning visual splendor (in spite of the color fluctuation in the battered Kino print I watched!) which emerged triumphant.
Not top-flight Kurosawa, then, but generally compelling nevertheless and providing a good balance between his trademark humanism (although the majority of the Russians are tritely depicted as fun-loving and rather immature) and action (a scuffle with bandits, a river rescue, a tiger hunt). The best sequence in the entire film is a spectacular blizzard which bonds together trapper/guide Dersu Uzala (remarkably played by Maxim Munzuk) and the narrating Russian captain (Yuri Solomin).
This clash of cultures, therefore, turns into a celebration of friendship with its succession of dramatic, poignant, even humorous vignettes. Dersu's incompatibility with modern civilization an oft-used device during this particular era in cinema brings to mind THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER (1975) and THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980); curiously, all three films were inspired by real events (DERSU UZALA being based on his companion Vladimir Andreyev's memoirs, and which had been adapted for TV during the previous decade).
By the way, knowing George Lucas' fondness for Kurosawa, the amiable and pint-sized titular character here who has an awkward way with words but displays infinite wisdom throughout may well have inspired the puppet Yoda from the "Star Wars" saga! Curiously enough, the film itself was distributed in the U.S. by none other than Roger Corman's New World company!!