Left Field Cinema

The Director: Akira Kurosawa is arguably Japan’s most influential and famous film maker, a man whose directorial career spanned six decades starting with Judo Story in 1943 and ending with Not Yet in 1993. He is often praised by world cinema enthusiasts as one of the titans of the art house circuit; however in reality the majority of his works have more populist ambitions than say the poetics of Andrei Tarkovsky or the biographical explorations of Ingmar Bergman. He is probably the only Japanese film maker that part-time cinephiles can name and even those with a more causal interest in cinema will have heard of his 1954 classic Seven Samurai (which of course was later remade into The Magnificent Seven). Make no mistake, Kurosawa generally made films for the masses and the high standard of his work is what made him such a success. I’ve seen a number of his films, the earliest being Stray Dog (1949) which tells the story of a detective trying to track down his stolen gun. Stray Dog is needlessly long and quite painful to watch in places as the detective continually makes idiotic blunders during his mission. The film is widely considered the beginning of Kurosawa’s maturing into an adult filmmaker, leaving behind his martial arts movies and moving into more serious territory, however it was his next film, Rashômon (1950), which would solidify his reputation as a master of cinema. Following a violent rape and subsequent murder, the events are recounted from four different perspectives, an idea that has been pinched by various other films and TV shows over the years, and incidentally is referenced in an episode of The Simpson’s when Marge tells Homer that he liked Rashômon only for Homer to reply “that’s not the way I remember it”. That a 1950’s Japanese film can be referenced in an American prime time cartoon demonstrates the films timelessness and influence, Rashômon is also widely considered responsible for the inclusion of a Best Foreign language category in the Academy Awards. Arguably his finest film is Ikiru (1952) for which you can read a Left Field Cinema article where I compare that film with Yasajiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953). I Live in Fear (1955) is an excellent exploration of the nations fear of further assaults by nuclear weapons as an elderly man can not get on with his life for fear of the devastating weapon. Throne of Blood (1957) is Kurosawa’s reworking of Shakespeare’s Macbeth into ancient Japan. An impressive final battle sequence would guarantee the film immortality amongst other weaker adaptations of this play (Roman Polanski and Orson Welles’ versions both pale into insignificance when compared to Kurosawa’s). Decades later he would return to Shakespearian source material with his adaptation of King Lear entitled Ran (1985) which, like Throne of Blood, transposed the action to old world Japan. Ran is possibly Kurosawa’s grandest film and one of best pictures of the 1980’s with impressive battle scenes and intense use of colour. The director was going blind at the time of the production which makes the achievement even more impressive. There is no unifying factor that brings together all of Kurosawa’s works, the majority of his films are set in the past, but some of his best films have contemporary settings; he’s famous for his samurai movies, but arguably his greatest achievements have been about the struggle of ordinary men to cope with more abstract questions of life; he’s famous for his intentional and distinctive use of rain but also was the first director to point his camera directly at the sun. His style changes with the times and the projects that he’s assigned to and he works within a number of different genres. No two Kurosawa films are exactly alike and when we compare and contrast his work to the likes of Ozu or Mikio Naruse we can clearly see the wide variety in the form and content of Kurosawa’s work.

The Film: One area that is generally consistent in Kurosawa’s films is their settings, for the most they’re part restricted to his native Japan, but there is one rather notable exception and that is Dersu Uzala. By moving the action to Russia and featuring a cast of all Russian actors, Kurosawa also moved away from his comfort zone and in doing so created one of his finest films. Set at the start of the 20th Centaury, Captain Vladimir Areniev (Yuri Solomin) commands a mapping survey into the Siberian wilderness. Along the way he and his team encounter an Asiatic hunter, the titular Dersu Uzala (Mksim Munzuk). Vladimir asks Dersu to joining them on their expedition, along the way the two men grow closer and become friends. Upon completion of the mission the men part company only to meet again five years later for another expedition, but their bond begins to disintegrate after Dersu shoots a Siberian Tiger and believes a curse has been put upon him because of this. Based on the memoirs of the real Vladimir Areniev, this is a true story and the events of the film are largely faithful to Vladimir’s memoirs. This is not the first film adaptation of the source material either, in 1961 Agasi Babayan directed a film version by the same name, his film has disappeared into general obscurity whilst Kurosawa’s is still being seen for the first time by audiences today. Babayan’s version is not available on DVD, which is a shame as it would be interesting to compare the two films.

The film is an odyssey of sorts, it is very light on plot, we’re on a journey with these characters, but there is never a clear destination for either us or the characters. This might be viewed as a negative aspect of the production, its aimlessness could test the patience of the audience, this is further compounded by the films structure, although it is clearly a three act film, the portions of each act are unusual with a longer first and third act and a comparatively brisk second act. The inevitable outcome of these portions is that the opening and closing of the film seem distractingly long. It is to Kurosawa’s credit that he manages to keep us engaged with the material throughout. Arguably the film lacks conflict for too long, Vladimir and Dersu are so close, their relationship so impervious to strain that again audiences may question what the film is actually building to. But in crafting the relationship so solidly for the first ninety minutes of the film, Kurosawa ensures that when events eventually take a turn for the worse we care more deeply than we would have otherwise.

Dersu Uzala boasts an interesting homo-erotic subtext within the central relationship, Vladimir and Dersu are very affectionate and sweet towards each other throughout most of the film, their friendship seems to go beyond the usual male comradely and bonding - they genuinely love each other. This subtext is perhaps unintentional, the love between the two central characters might have only been intended as plutonic, but for the modern audience their closeness and circumstances elude to a more romantic love between the two men. If Vladimir and Dersu had met in this day and age they might have had a passionate affair; the events that befall these two men remind of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005), in which two Cowboys embark on a romance when they’re left alone in the wilderness (both films share key events in their narratives). At one point Vladimir and Dersu are forced to sleep together for protection from the cold, it might seem infantile to infer homosexual activities because of these circumstances, but because of their affectionate behaviour towards one another it is difficult not to.

Dersu Uzala is oddly lyrical for a Kurosawa film, with long stretches of men wandering through the wilderness all alone with sparse dialogue and sparser music cues. But these more thoughtful moments of the film are broken up by three set pieces that rank amongst the best Kurosawa ever committed to film. The first sees Dersu and Uzala venturing out by themselves onto a giant frozen lake only for the wind to conceal their tracks, they end up stuck in the middle of an exposed field, with no trees to build a campsite and the sun rapidly setting, with time running out Dersu instructs Vladimir to cut down all of the long grass around them if they’re to survive, if Vladimir does what he says they’ll live, if he doesn’t they’ll die. The cinematography beautifully captures the sun setting behind them on the lake, as Isaak Shvart’s sinister score takes over the soundscape and Kurosawa rapidly cuts between the different shots of Dersu and Vladimir desperately chopping down the grass. Vladimir collapses from exhaustion but Dersu perseveres and uses the long grass to build a den for them to sleep in thus ensuring their survival. This is an incredible sequence which combines tension and beauty with unnerving results. The films often beautiful scenery and imagery is a major benefit, images of melting ice breaking apart and rotating in a water vortex is like watching a giant meat grinder, the image is supposed to invoke the passing of the seasons but now has more sinister connotations with concerns about Global Warming.

After Dersu has saved the Captain’s life, the favour is repaid in the second outstanding set piece as Dersu gets stuck on a raft heading down the river unable to disembark, he manages to grab onto a tree that has been wedged in the river bed, hanging onto this piece of wood in the midst of the heavy currents of the river and violent rapids only a few metres away. Vladimir and his team quickly set about cutting down a tree so they can retrieve Dersu by pushing it towards him in the middle of the river so that he might grab hold of it and be pulled to the banks. Even in this crisis though, Dersu is the one who comes up with the solution and tells them which tree to cut down whilst he hangs on for dear life. It’s an interesting point about Dersu’s superiority, as an ethnic minority in Russia it is surprising that the authorities allowed a film to be made about an Nanai hunter who is in almost every respect superior to the Russians he encounters, of course to tamper with this aspect would be to tamper with the original memoirs upon which the film is based. How many liberties (if any) the Babayan version of the film took in 1961 is not generally known, but it is somewhat surprising that the authorities allowed this film to be made twice. Of course a counter argument to this is that none of the Russian soldiers are depicted as negative characters, and only a few of them are ever exposed as anything less than completely competent.

The third impressive set piece comes at the end of the last act as the team are stalked by a tiger, at first Dersu shouts at the tiger to go away and it does, but later Vladimir and Dersu are confronted by the tiger again, this time by themselves. Dersu is forced to shoot and the tiger runs into the forest, where Dersu is sure that it will die from his shot, shortly afterwards Dersu starts to believe he is cursed by the Gods for what he’s done, he starts to lose his eyesight and can no longer live in the forest.

The vast majority of the film is set in the wilderness, from the start of the film up to the point where Vladimir invites Dersu to live with him and his family back in the city. After such a long stretch in the wilderness, the contrast with the city is profound, even in what might be viewed as a less overpowering city in the early 1900’s. Dersu predictably doesn’t like the city and it doesn’t seem right for him to be there either. He can not shoot his rifle or sleep outside in the city, and he doesn’t understand these restrictive laws. In the films most poignant comment on modern life he asks Vladimir: “Why man live in box?” despite being in a Middle class house with all the comforts Vladimir and his family could desire, within the context of this film the house appears as nothing more than a giant cage, a drab and lifeless environment and an unnatural way for men and women to live when compared to the richness and free spirited way which Dersu exists in the wild. As with Kurosawa’s previous film Ikiru, Dersu Uzala asks what does it mean to be alive? It’s not enough that our hearts beat and our lungs breathe - that’s what it means to exist, but not what it means to live.

M.Dawson