Dersu Uzala

DERSU UZALA depicts the friendship between the eponymous hunter and trapper who lived in harmony with nature with the young Russian explorer, cartographer and writer Vladimir Arsenyev (1872-1930), who led two expeditions to the Ussuri region at the beginning of the 20th century and recruited Dersu (1849-1908) as a guide. The film is based on Arsenyev's eponymous text, a classic of Russian literature that brought international attention to Dersu Uzala, a figure from a remote world, far from Western modernity. It is Kurosawa's appeal against the destruction of nature, whose beauty he captured with long takes and 70mm cameras. The contrast between untouched nature and human destruction is symbolized by his two main characters; with his very expeditions Arsenyev lay the foundations for the destruction of Dersu’s world, which so fascinated him. (Hans-Joachim Fetzer)