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.
Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling police procedural, Stray Dog, is one of the all-time-great film noirs. When newbie detective Murakami (Toshirō Mifune) gets his Colt lifted on a bus, he thinks he will be fired if he does not get it back. But as he searches for it, he discovers that it is being used in a series of robberies and murders that he feels responsible for. Teamed with seasoned veteran Sato (Takashi Shimura), Murakami risks his career — and his life — as he tries desperately to track down his gun before it is used again. Kurosawa makes audiences sweat as postwar Japan is in the midst of a heat wave, with Murakami, Sato, prostitute Harumi Namiki (Keiko Awaji), and others constantly mopping their brows, dripping wet. Inspired by the novels of Georges Simenon, Stray Dog is a dark, intense drama shot in creepy black and white by Asakazu Nakai and featuring a jazzy soundtrack by Fumio Hayasaka that unfortunately grows melodramatic in a few key moments — and oh, if only that final scene had been left on the cutting-room floor. Stray Dog will be screening at 11:00 am on June 3-5 as part of the IFC Center’s Weekend Classics — Kurosawa series, with half of the proceeds from all festival screenings benefiting 
In Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 gem, Ikiru, the great Takashi Shimura is outstanding as the simple-minded petty bureaucrat Kanji Watanabe, a paper-pushing section chief who has not taken a day off in thirty years. But when he suddenly finds out that he is dying of stomach cancer, he finally decides that there might be more to life than he thought after meeting up with an oddball novelist (Yunosuke Ito). While his son, Mitsuo (Nobuo Kaneko) and coworkers wonder just what is going on with him — he has chosen not to tell anyone about his illness — he begins cavorting with Kimura (Shinichi Himori), a young woman filled with a zest for life. Although the plot sounds somewhat predictable, Kurosawa’s intuitive direction, a smart script, and a marvelously slow-paced performance by Shimura make this one of the director’s best melodramas. Ikiru will be screening at 11:00 am on May 6-8 as part of the IFC Center’s Weekend Classics — Kurosawa series, with half of the proceeds from all festival screenings benefiting 
