Dersu Uzala
The Wikipedia article says that Jonathan Rosenbaum contributed to the list and I think it totally shows. The large quantity of Stroheim films, some of his more recent favorites – they are all in the list. I have no idea who put “Dersu Uzala” into the list, as JR is amongst the few film critics I actually know, but that person did well. It might not mean much to be in the same list as “Babe” or “Blair Witch Project”, but its appearance definitely made me more interested in the film.
As almost always these days, I had absolutely no idea what “Dersu Uzala” would be. I didn’t even know it was supposed to be a name – not every combination of two unintelligible words must be a name, right? If titles actually had to be representative of a film, the movie should rather have been called “My friendship with Dersu Uzala”, or if you want an even more comprehensive title: “My friendship with Dersu Uzala: Kurosawa’s vision of the beautiful landscapes of Siberia”. It sums up all you need to know about the film.
Yet at the same time, there is much more than that. I am fascinated by how Kurosawa is the director of this film, and how it was the first film he made after getting over his suicidal depression. “Dersu Uzala” is one of those slow-paced, beautiful films without all that much action (very much unlike what Kurosawa normally does) but a lot of life-affirming humanity. It delves in its cinematic beauty and tells a very simple story of friendship between two men whose backgrounds could not be any more different. Dersu does not only save their lives multiple times, even at the risk of his own life, but the film subtly transports a deep affection between the two characters which goes beyond simple gratitude. Most importantly, Dersu is not portrayed as some “wild person” like most of those civilized-protagonist-meets-native-person movies à la Pocahontas and almost everything playing in Africa do, instead the friendship between the main characters is inherently human and thusly immensely beautiful. It took me awhile into the arguably long film for the emotions to sink in, but by the time the captain meets Dersu for the second time, I was so into their relationship and cared for the characters so much that I felt a lot of suspense when they tried to save Dersu from drowning. (It is my favorite scene in the film!) Dersu is also a really cute person, I love the way he talks (especially when he calls the captain’s son “the Little Captain!”) and I am impressed by his incredible willingness to be a good person.
Recently, I have been reading “The Hobbit” – in fact, I still do – and we amused ourselves to make jokes about parallels between “Dersu Uzala” and the Hobbit book. Sometimes the Russian survey expedition group looks just like a bunch of dwarves, and Dersu is their hobbit. They are out walking through the woods, and in many cases the hobbit aka Dersu is the one saving the day. “Dersu Uzala” might not really work as an adventure film, but there definitely are some life-threatening situations scattered throughout it.
I don’t really care about whether the real Dersu Uzala was anything like the film. The film stands for itself, and it is wonderful execution of a simple but great story. Also, it was shot in 70mm so if you ever get a chance to see this in theaters, you must and then let me know how it was!