Event

DERSU UZALA

Sunday, January 25
Bagel Brunch at 10am Film at 11am
Followed by Discussion with CAC Co-Director Vic Skolnick

Additional screening - Monday, January 26 at 7:30pm

In Dersu Uzala, master director Akira Kurosawa created a work that was at once a spectacular epic as well as the chronicling of an extraordinary friendship. Amidst the majestic vistas of the Siberian wilderness, Kurosawa traces the unique bond that develops between two very different men. Vladimir Arseniev was a turn-of-the-century Russian ethnographer and surveyor who wrote two semi-documentary novels about his travels. Dersu Uzala was an elderly hunter who served as the guide for Arsenievs expediations. Dersu, who cannot read or write, is an all-knowing seer of nature who has learned to live in what most consider an utterly hostile environment. A veritable Sherlock Holmes of nature, the uncanny Dersu can, with a minute piece of evidence, forcast the weather, find water, build a shelter, track animals, and more. In contrast, Arseniev is a man who loves nature, but who studies it as something apart from himself. Through the prism of these two men, Kurosawa weaves an unforgettable film that is simultaneously a thrilling adventure, a human drama, an exploration of our relationship to nature, and a meditation on the philosophical differences between East and West.

Soviet Union/Japan, 1975, 144 min.