Maksim Munzuk gives a beautifully understated performance in Kurosawa’s DERSU UZALA
DERSU UZALA (Akira Kurosawa, 1975)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
July 15-17, $13, 11:00 am
Series continues through September 11
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
In the stunning Dersu Uzala, director-cowriter Akira Kurosawa has fashioned one of cinema’s greatest characters, a worldly-wise, deceptively simple charming man who understands life, nature, responsibility, and helping others. Tuvan actor Maksim Munzuk gives a marvelously understated performance as the title character, a hunter who is suddenly taken out of his quiet life of solitude when Russian army troops come to Siberia. Based on the 1923 memoir of Russian explorer Vladimir Klavdiyevich Arsenyev, the dazzling achievement focuses on the friendship between Uzala and Arsenyev (Yuri Solomin) as they battle the elements from Siberia to the city of Khabarovsk. Winner of the 1975 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Dersu Uzala will be screening at 11:00 am on July 14, 15, and 16 as part of the IFC Center’s Weekend Classics — Kurosawa series, which continues with Ran (July 22-24), Dreams (July 29-31), and Rhapsody in August (August 5-7); ticket sales benefit Japan Society’s Earthquake Relief Fund.