The narrative of Dersu Uzala is divided into two major sections, set in 1902, and 1907, that deal with separate expeditions which Arseniev conducts into the Ussuri region. In addition, a third time frame forms a prologue to the film. Each of the temporal frames has a different focus, and by shifting them Kurosawa is able to describe the encroachment of settlements upon the wilderness and the consequent erosion of Dersu’s way of life. As the film opens, that erosion has already begun. The first image is a long shot of a huge forest, the trees piled upon one another by the effects of the telephoto lens so that the landscape becomes an abstraction and appears like a huge curtain of green. A title informs us that the year is 1910. This is as late into the century as Kurosawa will go.
After this prologue, the events of the film will transpire even farther back in time and will be presented as Arseniev’s recollections. The character of Dersu Uzala is the heart of the film, his life the example that Kurosawa wishes to affirm. Yet the formal organization of the film works to contain, to close, to circumscribe that life by erecting a series of obstacles around it. The film itself is circular, opening and closing by Dersu’s grave, thus sealing off the character from the modern world to which Kurosawa once so desperately wanted to speak. The multiple time frames also work to maintain a separation between Dersu and the contemporary world. We must go back farther even than 1910 to discover who he was. But this narrative structure has yet another implication. It safeguards Dersu’s example, inoculates it from contamination with history, and protects it from contact with the industrialised, urban world. Time is organised by the narrative into a series of barriers, which enclose Dersu in a kind of vacuum chamber, protecting him from the social and historical dialectics that destroyed the other Kurosawa heroes. Within the film, Dersu does die, but the narrative structure attempts to immortalise him and his example, as Dersu passes from history into myth.
Wesee all this at work in the enormously evocative prologue. The camera tilts down to reveal felled trees littering the landscape and an abundance of construction. Roads and houses outline the settlement that is being built. Kurosawa cuts to a medium shot of Arseniev standing in the midst of the clearing, looking uncomfortable and disoriented. A man passing in a wagon asks him what he is doing, and the explorer says he is looking for a grave. The driver replies that no one has died here, the settlement is too recent. These words enunciate the temporal rupture that the film studies. It is the beginning of things (industrial society) and the end of things (the forest), the commencement of one world so young that no one has had time yet to die and the eclipse of another, in which Dersu had died. It is his grave for which the explorer searches. His passing symbolises the new order, the development that now surrounds Arseniev. The explorer says he buried his friend three years ago next to huge cedar and fir trees, but now they are all gone. The man on the wagon replies they were probably chopped down when the settlement was built, and he drives off. Arseniev walks to a barren, treeless spot next to a pile of bricks. As he moves, the camera tracks and pans to follow, revealing a line of freshly built houses and a woman hanging her laundry to dry. A distant train whistle is heard, and the sounds of construction in the clearing vie with the cries of birds and the rustle of wind in the trees. Arseniev pauses, looks around for the grave that once was, and murmurs desolately, ’Dersu’. The image now cuts farther into the past, to 1902, and the first section of the film commences, which describes Arseniev’s meeting with Dersu and their friendship.
Kurosawa defines the world of the film initially upon a void, a missing presence. The grave is gone, brushed aside by a world rushing into modernism, and now the hunter exists only in Arseniev’s memories. The hallucinatory dreams and visions of Dodeskaden are succeeded by nostalgic, melancholy ruminations. Yet by exploring these ruminations, the film celebrates the timelessness of Dersu’s wisdom. The first section of the film has two purposes: to describe the magnificence and in human vastness of nature and to delineate the code of ethics by which Dersu lives and which permits him to survive in these conditions. When Dersu first appears, the other soldiers treat him with condescension and laughter, but Arseniev watches him closely and does not share their derisive response. Unlike them, he is capable of immediately grasping Dersu’s extraordinary qualities. In camp, Kurosawa frames Arseniev by himself, sitting on the other side of the fire from his soldiers. While they sleep or joke among themselves, he writes in his diary and Kurosawa cuts in several point-of-view shots from his perspective of trees that appear animated and sinister as the fire light dances across their gnarled, leafless outlines. This reflective dimension, this sensitivity to the spirituality of nature, distinguishes him from the others and forms the basis of his receptivity to Dersu and their friendship. It makes him a fit pupil for the hunter.
How is Kurosawa able to show the erosion of Dersu’s way of life?
Show Hint
- By documenting the ebb and flow of modernisation.
- By going back farther and farther in time.
- By using three different time frames and shifting them.
- Through his death in a distant time.
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
Arseniev’s search for Dersu’s grave:
Show Hint
- is part of the beginning of the film.
- symbolises the end of the industrial society.
- is misguided since the settlement is too new.
- symbolises the rediscovery of modernity.
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
The film celebrates Dersu’s wisdom:
Show Hint
- by exhibiting the moral vacuum of the pre-modern world.
- by turning him into a mythical figure.
- through hallucinatory dreams and visions.
- through Arseniev’s nostalgic, melancholy ruminations.
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
According to the author, the section of the film following the prologue:
Show Hint
- serves to highlight the difficulties that Dersu faces that eventually kills him.
- shows the difference in thinking between Arseniev and Dersu.
- shows the code by which Dersu lives that allows him to survive his surroundings.
- serves to criticize the lack of understanding of nature in the pre-modern era.
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
In the film, Kurosawa hints at Arseniev’s reflective and sensitive nature:
Show Hint
- by showing him as not being derisive towards Dersu, unlike other soldiers.
- by showing him as being aloof from other soldiers.
- through shots of Arseniev writing his diary, framed by trees.
- All of these
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
According to the author, which of these statements about the film is correct?
Show Hint
- The film makes its arguments circuitously.
- The film highlights the insularity of Arseniev.
- The film begins with the absence of its main protagonist.
- None of these
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
As of 2009, there are 890 World Heritage Sites that are located in 148 countries (map). 689 of these sites are cultural and include places like the Sydney Opera House in Australia and the Historic Center of Vienna in Austria. 176 are natural and feature such locations as the U.S.’s Yellowstone and Grand Canyon National Parks. 25 of the World Heritage Sites are considered mixed i.e. natural and cultural Peru’s Machu Picchu is one of these. Italy has the highest number of World Heritage Sites with 44. India has 36 (28 cultural, 7 natural and 1 mixed) World Heritage Sites. The World Heritage Committee has divided the world’s countries into five geographic zones which include (1) Africa, (2) Arab States, (3) Asia Pacific (including Australia and Oceania), (4) Europe and North America and (5) Latin America and the Caribbean.
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