CHARACTER (1997)

Set in the early 1900's, the boringly-titled CHARACTER tells the story of a stern quiet man who bangs his maid once and they produce a baby boy. She leaves before the child is born and the man stalks her and even proposes to her, but she refuses over and over. The child grows up, but the woman is not much of a mother. She rarely speaks and doesn't have a loving nature. Despite this, the boy grows into a successful young man and even goes to law school. Throughout all of this his father and him have a quiet (and sometimes violent) ongoing war of wits to shows each other who's the boss.

The characters in CHARACTER are so rich that watching the movie is almost like reading a novel. It's like the darker elements of a Dickens novel come to live. A poor boy with no future rises from the ghetto purely by his intelligence and his intense hatred of his father. While the father who goes out of his way to torture the boy because he thinks it will make him strong.

Excellent performances by everybody (especially Jan Decleir as the brutal father), impressive costumes, nice photography.  I don't know how well it would hold up under repeat viewings, it's easy to see why it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

DERSU UZALA (1975)

Akira Kurosawa's first film after his failed suicide attempt tells the story of a small party of Russian soldiers who are out on a peaceful exploration mission in a remote area of Siberia when they meet Dersu Uzala, a gentle mountain man who instantly takes a liking to the Captain and agrees to become their guide. At first, the men find Dersu to be an quirky, superstitious old goat and laugh at him, but soon they start to admire him.  Especially after he saves the Captain's life from certain death in a blizzard. The mission ends and they part ways, but a few years later the Captain, while out with another map-making party runs into Dersu again. This time they become inseparable and the new group of soldiers quickly take a liking to him also. They have many adventures, but all things cannot be perfect forever...

This is a slower Kurosawa film, so if you're looking for the action of his more popular samurai films then you're going to be disappointed. That said it is still an entertaining and beautifully shot film. As always, Kurosawa knows exactly where to place the camera. The only problem I had and maybe it's just a personal one is I didn't really feel anything for either of the lead characters. They both felt distant and even after 141 minutes I still felt nothing for either one.

A good film, but not in my Top 10 Favorite Kurosawa Films.  If you're a fan of Kurosawa then of course you need to watch it, but others will probably just find it slow. It really depends on how much you enjoy foreign cinema.