Dersu Uzala is, in narrative terms, a straightforward bromance. The Russian explorer, Arsenev meets Dersu, a Siberian hunter, in the taiga. The film recounts the series of adventures the two have over the course of nearly a decade. It’s based on a real-life account, written by the explorer himself. Arsenev and Dersu survive snowstorms, tigers and raging rivers. There’s shades of Herzog at times, (although apparently this is a project Kurosawa first contemplated in the thirties). In many ways it’s a boys-own movie, there’s barely a woman in the film, until the explorer’s wife appears in the final ten minutes or so. (Tragic to learn that Aresnev’s wife was later executed in a Stalinesque purge.) Some of the imagery is astonishing, and it would appear that one aspect of Kurosawa’s drive to make this Dersu Uzala, á la Herzog, was to push the actual physical process of filmmaking to its limits.
However the film transcends its macho context. There’s something remarkably touching about the relationship between Dersu and Arsenev. The narrative is also an exploration of the schism between an urban view of humanity and a more pantheistic one. Dersu calls all the animals in the taiga ‘humans’. In common with other native cultures, he appears to view the relationship between himself and nature as a symbiotic one, to be treated with respect and care. The way in which Arsenev comes to respect and love his friend, and vice versa, implies a subliminal message about the need for so-called ‘civilised’ society to embrace and engage with the so-called ‘primitive’ society. All of which is related in an understated and constantly engaging manner. Kurosawa constantly seduces, both with the breathless scale of the image and with the warmth of the characterisation.
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