The film's finest passage occurs when the hunter and the captain are stranded on a frozen lake-a harrowing, spooky-gorgeous spectacle of supernatural realism.

The episodes in this second part go on endlessly, loosely, obviously. They lack the revelations of the winter scenes and they do little but belabor at length the points already made. They wreck the film's balance and make its achievements dull.

To Arseniev, Dersu embodies something civilized men have lost… Neither can really understand the other — which is precisely what makes their friendship so special.

Dersu Uzala will undoubtedly go down in film history as a fine expression of the creative style, and the deeper urges and beliefs behind that style, of a truly great director.