It is extraordinarily beautiful film. Maksim Munzik stars as Dersu, a lonely hunter with lots of 'nature's street smarts'. He befriends with the Russian army captain who leads the team of explorers in Siberia. 'Dersu Uzala' is a tale about survival and man's ancient quest to conquer nature. It's also a tale about finding your own soul. While Dersu leads army captain and his men through rough terrains (doing it without any interest getting personal gains) he tells them about forest, and amazes them with his positive and seemingly naive (very wise, actually) outlook on life. Respect towards man and animals, living or nonliving - Dersu calls everything men or people (ljudi).Very beautiful film, but not only because of magnificent cinematography or Akira Kurosawa's masterful direction, but more because of the beautiful soul of Dersu.

Akira Kurosawa's "Dersu Uzala" (1975) is an oddity in the director's oeuvre, but nonetheless, or precisely because of it, beloved by many. It has a historical setting, though it has no samurais and very little action. It focuses on the lyric moments of humanity which have always been integral to the beauty of Kurosawa's cinema. The film is based on Vladimir Arsenev's novel about his expeditions to Ussuria in the early 20th century during which he became acquainted with an aging hunter living in the woods, gathering all he needs from the environment. The simple charm of the story probably fascinated Kurosawa and offered a perfect basis for that time in his career. Before making "Derzu Uzala", Kurosawa had suffered both a professional and a personal tragedy as his first film in color "Dodes'ka-den" (1970) became a huge financial flop, and subsequently Kurosawa tried to commit suicide. Thus, in the early 1970's Kurosawa had truly lost his faith in cinema, the modern world, and life itself (for a moment at least). For this level of desolation, Arsenev's story offered a perfect means of meditation since its setting was far from capitalism and modern life as well as contemporary cinema. After all, "Derzu Uzala" is, at its heart, a story about total unselfishness, utter humility, and the beauty of life in touch with nature. What is more, Kurosawa uses a veritably lingering narrative which is combined with ascetic aesthetics. Overall, the style is very stripped. The gorgeous shots of the Russian landscape may be sublime, but it is really the landscape that is sublime. The form that shows it is naturalistic. "Dersu Uzala" is far from the surrealistic poetry combined with Gorky's realism that characterized Kurosawa's previous film, "Dodes'ka-den". It is much simpler. It gave Kurosawa a moment to contemplate the values and ideals of life that were dearest to him.In all its simplicity, "Dersu Uzala" tells us about the friendship between two different men: a Russian soldier, Arsenev, and a self-reliant hunter, Dersu. It studies the conflict of nature and civilization which forces a life of nature to diminish. The heart-rending tale is heavy with nostalgic yearning for the past and a melancholic sense of emptiness for the future. All this might sound sentimental, but somehow Kurosawa manages to create a character out of Dersu that is not idealized in a sentimental fashion. Yet, it is very difficult to point out the elements in the film which cause this effect; that is, the believable disposition of Dersu's character. On paper, it sounds naive and sentimental, but on screen -- in Kurosawa's images -- it gathers a new dimension. Arguably "Dersu Uzala" is the simplest story Kurosawa ever told, but maybe even more importantly it is also the story which he told in the simplest fashion.

When the movie ends and your breath still can't calm down and you want to share what you've just seen with the closest ones... it deserves 10.Definitely not the perfect action/adventure. But I don't suppose it was meant to be such."People", he repeated all the time - "people" were everywhere. People were the soldiers, people were the trees, the fire, the wind, the beasts in the wood...It amazed me enormously the idea of a man so well living with the nature (not "in"), so respecting it that it has been turned into a part of him.A great example of how surviving does not make you necessarily mean and angry man. ...But a truly loving one.

One important issue was yet not touched in previous reviews - it's the Vladimir Arseniev books, that became Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala story. Not just memoirs or journal, but books that were written by Vladimir Arseniev based on his experience as an explorer of Sikchote Alin. These books were and still remain popular and well known in Russia. The books are based on memoirs and journals of Arseniev, but he made a good work to create a literature of them. And this he did exactly by focusing on friendship between him and Dersu (which indeed took place), and on unique character of the latter. And a great part of the books is a beautiful depiction of nature. The film "Dersu Usala" follows these initial focuses and ideas to make perfect visualization.So, please also pay some tribute to the soul and talent of Vladimir Arseniev, whose work is a masterpiece in itself, even if there were no any films based on it.There is a wiki page about this writer and some of his books were translated and can be found by non-Russian-speaking readers.