Customer Reviews

Dersu Uzala

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Let's make it clear from start : the movie is a pure masterpiece and will top rank in anyone vidéo collection. The point here is the DVD transfer which is a catastrophy. I am not a techno nut & am very tollerant when there is some quality problems here & there. But this DVD has to be a case on what can go wrong : the sound is scratchy at best, the colors are mostly saturated or are totally faded, the picture goes constantly out of focus, ... Things where so bad I checked my hardware with another DVD ! For the price this is a rip-off.

Wonderful film, one of my top ten, but this is a terrible DVD. My videotape is MUCH better. Kino must have searched for the worst possible print to transfer; every flaw is preserved and magnified. A ridiculous, cheap, cynical, hack-job on a beautiful film. How did this happen, and why won't someone with a conscience do this film DVD justice?

The movie is a classic..one of Kurosawa's best films. Even better than some of his older works but something definately stinks here. How is this DvD actually worth [money]? I mean, make no mistake; this is a Kurosawa, but the quality sometimes looks worst than a bootlegged VHS. Kurosawa's older movies like Hidden Fortress and Seven Samurai look much better than this and those movies are 44 and 48 years old respectively, COST LESS and are black and white.

Sadly this isn't the first Kurosawa movie I've seen been massacred by a poor DvD transfer. Remember Ran? That DvD was a utter disgrace. So was Madadayo and Sanjuro. I'm so sick of these companies seeking a quick profit so they take works of art and destroy them with half assed ports and then charge over inflated prices on top of all that. It makes me sick. And then there are movies like Kagemusha, Ikiru and Throne of Blood (some of the greatest movies ever made) that have yet to be released on DvD and that I find completely unacceptable.

I'm sorry this is beginning sound like a rant but no way is this half assed transfer worth that much money. The movie gets 10 stars but the DvD gets NONE.

Dersu Uzala is one of my favorite films, a film to be cherished for its subtlties and how they eventually lead to larger truths. Very few films are made on the themes of compassion and subtle bravery. Yuri Solomin, the Russian captain who leads a small squad of soldiers into the Siberian wilds to survey the land, is one of the most memorable portraits of compassion ever put on film. His relationship to Dersu (Maksum Muzuk)is almost totally intuitive and wordless. The captain knows almost from the onset that this Goldi wilderness hunter is special and step by step the captain and his men learn gentle and harsh lessons from this marvelous woodsmen, how to survive in almost impossible weather conditions, how to act like a man, with dignity and compassion. This was one of Kurosawa's last films. It was a difficult time in his life when it was reported he attempted suicide and that George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola help him get this movie made, knowing that this lengendary director should not be neglected. The cinematography goes much farther than nature specials and some scenes, like the distant icy landscapes lit by firelight, create a beautiful, unforgettable vision of that wild place. I guess you could call this an action picture, but Kurosawa gives us more, dives deeper to show us the day to day wonders, the harsh existence, and sadness when one is taken out one's element and put in an alien one. Dersu Uzala is a brilliant, lasting vision of man humbled by nature but respecting nature, and then bringing it back in a poem of reflection. The understated ending, so subtle, almost mute, is one of the most moving I've ever watched. All viewers should cherish this film for so many strengths and be glad that we had such a master film maker as Kurosawa among us. He will be greatly missed by all. Highly recommended for all ages, a masterpiece that will test and reward the audience like the harshness of the Siberian landscapes it so boldly portrays.

Dersu is one of my favorite films of one of my favorite directors. What a shame it did not get an adaquate treatment on DVD. The pictorial quality is inferior awful and disgusting. If You love this film don't buy this product.

The movie, while more conventional that Kurosawa's greatest films, is still excellent. The plot, Russian Captain meets a wise old nomad and they become friends, is simple, but beautifully told.
However, this is a review of the DVD which is TERRIBLE! Scratches, lines, pops, hairs, dust, etc mars almost every scene. I wouldn't expect a perfect transfer from an older movie, but this is so bad that it distracts from the movie as a whole. This is a film begging for a new transfer. Would we treat other Academy Award-winning movies so badly?

I hesitated to buy this movie due to criticisms on it's visual quality. I bought it anyway because it was Kurosawa. I'm glad I did. For the most part, the transfer was fine. There were scenes which appeared fogged, but that was because it was shot in fog and/or extreme cold conditions. The rest of the time I couldn't find what other reviewers were complaining about. An interesting study of two men from completely different backgrounds who grow to respect and love each other. My only negative comment is that I couldn't activate an added feature.

Kino once again takes a great film and gives it the hatchet treatment. In fairness, I suppose that Kino puts out films that aren't likely to have the popular appeal (and price tags) of those issued by Criterion. But that's no excuse for taking non-anamorphic transfers of 'Scope films from lousy prints. At least they didn't put in hard subs this time.

As I still have VHS capabilities, this review does not concern itself with the technical problems with the Kino DVD. I thank those who have dealt with this issue, because Dersu deserves to be experienced in the finest print and on as large a screen as possible, because the film could be subtitled: THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE WRIT LARGE. For film buffs, of course, cinematography is one of these, and Dersu remains unsurpassed for its integration of narrative and landscape (one imagines that Herzog and Wenders must have reviewed this film endlessly). Kurosawa's cinematic technique here is close-up: simple, direct, intimate, yet one gets this deep feeling of comprehensiveness. In one of the grand sequences of the film, when Dersu says "The sun is a good man. The moon is a good man.", and Kurosawa gives us the corresponding visuals, the whole organic unity of life seems clearly presented to us, in a moment, at once palpable and ultimately mysterious, comprehensible yet inevitably esoteric, knowable for a day or a night, but secret in its origins and ends. From an intellectual perspective, the film examines the meeting of the two basic cultures of this world: modern, "scientific" eurocentric peoples, and ancestral, aboriginal or 'first peoples': those who seek to alter their environment and those who strive to live within the given. The environment, in this case, is stark and unforgiving: Siberia. Mostly, however, the film discusses a topic rarely (as strange as it seems) the subject (at least devoid of romantic or sexual overtones) of many films nowadays: friendship. Based on a true story, the film details the friendship which develops between two people from opposite orientations in virtually every sense. Neither can exist in the other's world, but for a brief, spectacular moment they are brought together to show us how we can live together, and why we should. Nowhere else have I seen perhaps the noblest of human endeavors treated with such dignity and grace. The results are sublime. In my opinion, Kurosawa's best (which is not merely very good), and a film I wish everyone could have the privilege of seeing.

Being a Foreign Film lover for over twenty years, I would put this movie in my top ten list without hesitation. It is masterfully made with most of the story lines told visually. The first half of the movie is filled with majestic beauty of Siberia, adventure, friendship, and vitality, in stark contrast with the almost unbearable second half, in which the hunter lost his ability to cope with the wild due to advancing age. Forces of nature finally caught on with him and turned into a menacing beast ready to swallow him. Dersu the hunter, the main role of this movie, is such a lovable character that you can't help but fascinated by him. He is simple but full of wisdom, learned through years of surviving in the harshest environment. He would be considered naive and gullible according our civilized standard. But in his own unspoiled wild, he is larger than life, courageous, resourceful, and imbued with moral impecability. He is definitely one of the all-time most memorable figures in films. The image of him in the glow of fleeting camp fire by the river, singing a strangely beautiful song paying respect to his lost family, haunted me for days.

A near perfect movie!