• Kurosawa worked in the USSR (shot on location in Taiga) for Dersu Uzala– his first film in five years, his second in color, first on the larger Sovoscope 70mm canvas
  • Shot almost entirely in exteriors – the Siberian taiga – Kurosawa catching the colors of the seasons (certainly his use of weather, all over the place here, a trait throughout his work)

Shot almost entirely in exteriors – the Siberian taiga – Kurosawa catching the colors and changes of the seasons (certainly his use of the elements, all over the place here, a trait throughout his work)

  • Flashback narrative style- a voice over by Russian captain (who is a surveyor more than a soldier here) Yuriy Solomin playing the captain- but he’s sort of an empty vessel—the film is all about Maksim Munzuk’s titular character
  • Starts in fall/autumn and Kurosawa beautifully captures the foliage—you can feel that every leaf is strategically placed and colored though it falls just short of Sirk or Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven
  • There’s a heavy emphasis on the color red throughout

There’s a heavy emphasis on the color red throughout

  • The sun and moon shot in the same shot- a stunner- certainly an influence of Lucas’ shot in Star Wars

The sun and moon shot in the same shot- a stunner- certainly an influence of Lucas’ shot in Star Wars

  • Kurosawa does use the Taiga as an obstruction or to frame within the frame in a few instances but this isn’t Letter Never Sent by Kalatozov—and his use of the Taiga

Kurosawa does use the Taiga as an obstruction or to frame within the frame in a few instances but this isn’t Letter Never Sent by Kalatozov—and his use of the Taiga

  • Dersu is a rich character- pantheistic almost—changes when he kills the tiger, his haunted past, an honorable character that is tragically cut blind, held captive (sort of) in the end and then struck down by man (fitting right in with Kurosawa’s dog-eat-dog nihilism)
  • Kurosawa use of the magic hour is quite an achievement as well- the cutting of the grass sequence – the race against the close to save themselves from the elements is a great short film sequence

Kurosawa use of the magic hour lighting photography is quite an achievement

  • “man’s measure is dwarfed by the vastness of nature”- line in text
  • Broken into two parts- part 2 starts with the ice breaking in spring and I thought Kurosawa was going to give us all four seasons but no—
  • Plotless, a slow-burn the story of a man, of friendship and the exteriors
  • All but gone are the complex blocking compositions and deep focus work of the 1960’s from Kurosawa
  • Recommend/Highly Recommend border – certainly can’t find a spot in the top 10 of a year like 1975