Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa)

[brtracker2023]

What an amazing movie. I am curious though about a defect throughout this movie that I can't recall seeing in any other films. The youtube link captures it quite well.

Dersu Uzala | DRAMA | FULL MOVIE - YouTube

I really don't even know exactly how to properly describe it but it looks as though the image is constantly changing color or perhaps contrast just enough to notice in say six vertical areas of the picture. It's like the picture color is wobbly if that makes sense. Watch starting at the 45 second mark of the film. What causes this and does it have a term to describe the issue? I'm by no means complaining, I'm just interested if there's an explanation for why it looks like it does and I apologize for not being able to describe it better than this.

[Randy Miller III]

Originally Posted by brtracker2023

What an amazing movie. I am curious though about a defect throughout this movie that I can't recall seeing in any other films. The youtube link captures it quite well. Dersu Uzala | DRAMA | FULL MOVIE - YouTube

I really don't even know exactly how to properly describe it but it looks as though the image is constantly changing color or perhaps contrast just enough to notice in say six vertical areas of the picture. It's like the picture color is wobbly if that makes sense. Watch starting at the 45 second mark of the film. What causes this and does it have a term to describe the issue? I'm by no means complaining, I'm just interested if there's an explanation for why it looks like it does and I apologize for not being able to describe it better than this.

It's color fluctuation or shifting, which is likely a result of the less-than-optimal film stock reluctantly used by Kurosawa. I'm not sure how much of it was a byproduct of the original recording or just age-related wear and tear, but I went into light detail in my belated site review of the Imprint disc. There are actually two of them: the first print released last year, and a second printing (no slipcover) coming in July.

[brtracker2023]

I finally received my Imprint copy and it's actually better than I was expecting. I'm pleased to have this incredible film on blu-ray, especially since who knows how much longer it will be available to buy at a reasonable price. I originally just wanted to pop it in and check out a few scenes to see how it looked but of course I got sucked in to the story and before I knew it I was half way through.