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MOVIES AS GOOD AS A BOOK, NUMBER 37

DERSU UZALA

Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Principal actors: Maxim Munzuk (Dersu Uzala), Yuri Solomin (Captain Arseniev)
Running time: 141 minutes
Release date: 1975

In the early 1970s the Japanese film-maker, Akira Kurosawa, found himself out of fashion at home and unable to raise finance. He accepted Russian backing to shoot this picture.

The story is based on a semi-autobiographical novel by a Russian army captain surveying Siberia. The narrative starts in 1902, deep in the taiga, where the map-making party meets a solitary hunter belonging to a Mongolian race called the Goldi. The contrast between the educated Captain (a man of about 35) and the stocky, bandy-legged Goldi (who is at least 65, though he does not know his exact age) could scarcely be more marked, but the two strike up an immediate rapport. The Captain invites the hunter, Dersu Uzala, to join his detachment as a guide.

Dersu has lived alone in the taiga for many years. His wife and two children were killed by smallpox. He personally burned their bodies, together with his house, and when he sees flames thinks to himself 'they are there'.

At first the soldiers laugh at him. But, without fuss, he proves invaluable and earns their respect. From the start the Captain is charmed by his animistic view of the world and admires his intelligence and no-nonsense altruism. When winter sets in and the detachment must go back to civilization, it is with regret that the Captain says goodbye. And for his part, it appears that Dersu has also grown fond of the Captain. As he trudges off to resume his career trapping sables, he turns in the distance and shouts the name he uses for his friend: 'Capitan!'

A few years later, the Captain embarks on another survey in the wilderness. Though he is excited by the prospect of finding Dersu, he dares not hope that such an unlikely thing will occur. None the less, late in the summer, the two meet up again.

This second phase of the film provides some of its most dramatic action sequences, and its most stunning photography. Of the two credited cinematographers, one was Kurosawa's own, and he used a number of his Japanese crew on location.

Without spoiling the story, I can say that Dersu twice saves the Captain's life. The two men become even closer friends; and when, in the autumn, Dersu realizes to his horror that his eyesight is failing and that he must leave his beloved taiga, the Captain invites him to share his home in the city.

The Captain's wife is kind to their guest, and his young son idolizes Dersu, but Dersu is not one to live indoors. In an apparently low-key resolution of the plot, he insists on returning to the taiga and taking his chances.

Soon afterwards the Captain receives a telegram. His visiting card has been found (the only possession) on the 'body of a Goldi man' and he is being asked to identify the body.

When he arrives, two indifferent gravediggers are at work, supervised by an even more indifferent official in a greatcoat, holding a register. While Dersu is interred by the gravediggers, the official impatiently gets the Captain to sign and hurries off. The gravediggers depart; the Captain is left alone. He finds Dersu's forked staff half hidden in the snow, erects it in the mound, and in a moment of almost unbearable poignancy whispers the name: 'Dersu'.

By this point we already know (for it forms the opening sequence) that Dersu's burial-spot is destined within three years to be obliterated by a new settlement. Dersu becomes a metaphor for the old way of life, the pre-industrial way. The wilderness is rapidly being colonized, exploited, befouled.

This can be viewed as one of Kurosawa's bleakest movies. Dersu's animism, consciously or otherwise, reflects the beliefs of Shinto: and Kurosawa was born into a samurai family. We inhabit a world without God, a place of indifference where we live once and are forgotten. Like Dersu, Kurosawa found himself bereaved (of his film-making base), alone in the wilderness and growing old. Dersu's blindness may even be a symbol of Kurosawa's impending loss of creative power.

But, taken as a whole, Dersu Uzala is anything but bleak. Kurosawa's vision of the Siberian landscape is nothing less than an act of worship. His affection for Dersu rivals that of the Captain himself.

The film is a celebration of friendship, indeed of love in its purest form. It is one of Kurosawa's finest achievements and will sweep you away. What more can anyone ask of the cinema?

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