David Hast: Scott have you seen Dersu Uzula?
Scott Vander Werf: I have seen Dersu Uzula and I first saw it at Kalamazoo Collegein 1980 when I was a student at Western Michigan University. It was part of their film series. It blew me away. It was not what I expected. I didn't understand where the whole non-Japanese aspect of it having seen Rashomon and Seven Samurai. I really expected it to be another Japanese, you know, either historical film or contemporary film.
DH: Yeah, well, this is this is one of the Dersu Uzula is one of the later films made by the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.This is our third episode on Kurosawa. We've been discussing ones that are less famous than you mentioned, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, movies like that. We've so far we've recommended Stray Dog, Hidden Fortress and High and Low, but this is even less known and it was made in 1975 in Manchuria. Is it the only film he made outside of Japan, as far as you know?
SVW: As far as I know. think that this was one of his final films before, if not the final film before he had a big break and then came back with the backing of Spielberg and George Lucas and people like that and made Ron and Kakamusha.
DH: Right. This is when he was, I mean, you we talked about this in our previous episodes, how even though he's this, you know, many people think the greatest of Japanese directors and he made these groundbreaking movies in the40s and especially in the 50s, he couldn't raise money in Japan, they didn't think he was successful enough. so, and before he got the backing of these young tyrosin Hollywood, he made this one where uh he went to the Soviet Union.worked some of it shot at the MosFilm, which is the Moscow film studio that goes all the way back to the Silent Era and as far as I know is probably still there.And um they financed it and he made this movie about it's a Russian and Siberian Manchurian story. It's not one of his masterpieces. I wouldn't necessarily classify it that way, but it's a really touching story. And Kurosawa is an incredibly beautiful filmmaker visually. So it's saying a lot, but I would say this is one of his most beautiful films.
SVW: And except for some of the scenes that happened towards the end of the film, which is probably the studio scenes, it's all it's all it's a nature-based film. It's all filmed outside.
DH: Yeah, they shot it. took them two years to shoot on location in Siberia, sometimes in freezing weather, which we see. I mean, yeah, It almost feels documentary like at times. And it was shot in 70 millimeter too, which is, uh I wish somewhere out there was an amazingversion of it. It's not one of these movies that hasn’t been restored. You're not gonna find a beautiful uh version of it.I watched onmore or less regular DVD.
SVW: And I watched it on the Criterion streaming channel. And it did, there seemed to be some sort of flaw there that I don't know what it was. It was sort of a flickering. It didn't take away from the wonderful story and even the visuals. You could still tell that this was a beautifully shot film.
DH: Yeah, the available versions that you can see streamingor find on disc are good. They're just not, they got it. It's got to be better than that. You wish they could make a version that was up to the standards of that 70 millimeter.
SVW: And maybe there'sa...pristine negative or print that's in in Russia. That's in a vault somewhere one would have and…
DH: …yeah, that's probably why it's it probably it was probably owned by the Soviet Union, which doesn't exist anymore right? Who knows? But anyway, what the what it is it's a story based on an early 20th century memoir by a Russian soldier Vladimir Arsenyev and it's about this friendship, this deep friendship that develops between him and Dersu Uzula, the title character, who's this Siberian hunter and trapper.And in the first main sequence of the movie, it's 1902, and Arsenov is leading a platoon of Russian soldiers on a mission to Manchuria to chart the border with Russia. So it's like a surveying mission.And they come across this Siberian hunter, Dersu Uzula, in the woods. And they hire him as their guide because you can see they don't really know their way around.
SVW: Although actually he comes upon them. He walks into their campsite one.
DH: Oh, that's right. So um and he helps them in situation after situation. I mean, this is not just uncharted woods type territory and tundra, but it's Siberia. I mean, it's really cold and all that. And he helps them over and over again. And then, just the way he is as a character, know, he's this, he, he models a kind of ethic of the forest. He leaves, they, they, work on it. They find a cabin and they work on it. And then he's like, give me food so I can leave it. And they're like, why would you leave food? And it's like, cause the next person who comes will need it.
SVW: And he has this kind of specifically rice, salt and matches.
DH: That's right. ‘Cause he knows it's going to be things that are survival oriented. And he seems to have a sort of animist faith. He has this deep faith in nature He calls all creatures men.
SVW: Or people, even the water is people.
DH: Right the earth the winds the water the sun and moon, they're people.
SVW: And he's also he's saving them at times. He actually saves their lives and particularly the captain.
DH: Well, this is maybe the most amazing sequence in the movie, Dersu and Arsenev are stuck in this windstorm by a frozen lake. It's just completely desolate, flat. There's this frozen lake and then just nothingness.
SVW: The sun is setting.
DH: The sun is setting. And then thishuge wind is coming up. Andit's like they could just die in this windstorm out with no shelter whatsoever. And Dersu kind of tells Arsene of what to do and out of what seems like to be nothing just weeds that are growing He engine builds this kind of special shelter that saves both of their lives.
SVW: He's alsoyou see his humor as well and the fact that he's very empathetic Now beyond his animistic thing and he understands the other people they do encounter. I'm assuming they were Chinese uh They're Chinese people that are also living in the area. They encounter some bandits, right?
DH: Yeah, they are. Yeah, so they're not the I think that the Chinese are kind of, they don't come from that area, right?
SVW: Well, you mentioned that it's Manchuria is part of China. Is it not?
DH:Now, I haven't done my research. I mean, I think it's now part of China. OK, so if you go back earlier, you know,these are these are tribes who are by no means, um you know, Chinese. Right. So the native people there. So, yeah, they show some…you actually see some conflictand...
SVW: uh Although there's not... this is not a movie where there's any sort of uh big sort of action conflict. It's all men within the nature. Within nature, within the...almost like Moby Dick. You know, the idea that nature is more...nature doesn't care about us. It just is.
DH: It is, it's one of those man versus nature movies. And I kept thinking, you know, we're so used to this when you see people from different cultures and all that, there's going to be some kind of conflict, right? But there never was really any conflict between Dersu and these Russian soldiers, especially the main one, who's the main character. The captain, obviously,
SVW: There's a bond there that youvery quickly you see the bond, but even all the other soldiers, there's the first part where it's one platoon, and then the second part of the movie, there's another five years later, there's another platoon, a different platoon of soldiers. And you see how all of the soldiers are won over by this guy.
DH: Yeah, they all right. You think there's going to be, uh, soldiers are going to be grumbling or not like him. Why is the captain, you know, give him all his attention? But no, I guess the the one dark side is you find out some sad things about Dersu's past and why he just lives in the woods.
