Kurosawa in Siberia: how the master got his mojo back

From Rashomon (1950) to Yojimbo (1961), Akira Kurosawa’s run of critically acclaimed postwar films made him an international phenomenon, but a subsequent attempt to break into Hollywood in the late 1960s proved disastrous. Following an unceremonious exit from the American-Japanese production Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), and the commercial failure of his attempted homecoming rebound Dodes’ka-den (1970), the director reached the nadir of his career, and even attempted suicide. Yet, an invitation from the Soviet production company Mosfilm would lead to Kurosawa travelling to Siberia to direct Dersu Uzala (1975), the success of which would revive the filmmaker’s fortunes.

Dersu Uzala is the adaptation of a 1923 memoir by Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev about his exploration of the far-east Russian frontier and encounter with a native Nanai trapper – Dersu Uzala. Captain Arsenyev and his company are conducting a topographical survey of the Sikhote-Alin mountain range when they come across Dersu. Immediately taken with the wise and good-natured tribesman, he asks him to become their tour guide. Dersu’s resourcefulness and skills as a hunter proves invaluable to the troops, and on more than one occasion he saves the captain’s life.

Dersu accompanies the men for several months before they have to part ways. The party continues the survey without him, and Arsenyev, saddened by his departure, spends the next five years hoping to run into his old friend. Eventually they are reunited and Dersu rejoins the mission. However, there is a change in the old hunter. Once a crack shot with a rifle, he fails to hit an attacking tiger, and it soon becomes clear that his advanced age and failing eyesight would hamper his ability to survive in the wilderness.

This simple, obscure tale might seem like a curio in the oeuvre of a filmmaker best known for his stylised samurai period dramas (jidaigeki), but in fact Kurosawa had a longstanding affinity for Russian literature. From his youth he had been obsessed with the likes of Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy, and had previously adapted two Russian stories into films: The Idiot (1951), based on the Dostoevsky novel, and The Lower Depths (1957), an adaptation of a play by the dramatist Maxim Gorky. Both films are expressive of the contemplative and existential style of Russian storytelling and serve as precedents for Dersu Uzala’s narrative minimalism.

For The Idiot and The Lower Depths, Kurosawa swapped the Russian names and settings for Japanese ones; no such transposition was necessary for Dersu Uzala though, as he was granted unprecedented access by the Kremlin to film on location in the Siberian Taiga, using a Russian cast and crew; Dersu is played by Siberian actor Maxim Munzuk. 

Beyond lending authenticity to the story, the specific cultural and geographic peculiarities of the story are not so easily transported to a Japanese context as the other two. This story of an unlikely friendship between a refined, educated European and an indigenous, nomadic Asian man is set against the immense backdrop of the Siberian hinterlands. Over the five-year expedition, Arsenyev and company experience the changing scenes and seasons of these unexplored lands. We see them toil from golden morning to deep red sunset, shelter from heavy rain, wade through rushing rivers and trek across snow-laden thick forests.

Then, there is that unforgettable scene in which Arsenyev and Dersu – having strayed from the rest of the party – are stranded in a desolate, snowy marshland, with John Ford-style extreme wide shots deepening their sense of isolation. The frozen expanse is suddenly engulfed by a blizzard, and the two men struggle to survive against the overwhelming force of nature. Here, especially, Kurosawa masterfully captures the sheer scale, beauty and terror of the region. 

It’s tempting to hypothesise that the Kremlin’s support of Kurosawa was intended as an act of Cold War one-upmanship against the Americans who had scorned him. It has also been suggested that the film contains anti-Chinese undertones (relations between the two communist nations were tense at the time it was made). Political ploy or not, the film – despite a mediocre reception in Japan – performed well internationally, selling 20 million tickets in Russia and grossing $1.2 million in the US and Canada. It would win two awards at the Moscow International Film Festival, as well as the 1976 Academy Award for best foreign language film.

Dersu Uzala was a recuperative exercise for Kurosawa, a labour of love that breathed new life into the dispirited director. With this second wind – and the support of such benefactors as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola – Kurosawa would mount such lavish productions as Kagemusha (1980), Ran (1985) and Dreams (1990) and move into the triumphant final stage of his career.

Dersu Uzala screens in 70mm as part of our Kurosawa season at BFI Southbank.