Dersu Uzala ***** (1975, Maksim Munzuk, Yuriy Solomin, Mikhail Bychkov) – Classic Movie Review 10,633

Director Akira Kurosawa’s 1975 USSR-Japanese co-production, the adventure biographical drama Dersu Uzala, won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (Soviet Union) in 1976.

Young imperial Russian officer, Captain Vladimir Arsenev (Yuriy Solomin), sent by the Russian army on an expedition to explore the snowy Siberian wilderness, surveys Siberian seaboard forests in 1902, guided by rugged seasoned Mongolian hunter Dersu Uzala (Maksim Munzuk).

Even if the subject perhaps sounds none too promising, the result is an astonishing, ravishing, eye-opening film.

Anchored by Munzuk’s rousing turn, and those of Solomin and Mikhail Bychkov as Otryad Arseneva, this often stirring picture boasts many remarkable scenes in Kurosawa’s best style, plus an exciting use of wide screen and stereo sound.

The screenplay by Akira Kurosawa and Yuriy Nagibin is based on the journals of Vladimir Arsenev.

With a $4,000,000 cost and Japanese studios reluctant to fund Kurosawa, he filmed Dersu Uzala in Mosfilm Studios, Moscow, Russia; Primorsky Kray, Russia; and Siberia, Russia.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,633

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