Review: Seven Years in Tibet (1997) Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 4.0)
******************************** Key to rating system: 2.0 stars Debatable 2.5 stars Some people may like it 3.0 stars I liked it 3.5 stars I am biased in favor of the movie 4.0 stars The movie had personal impact or stood out *********************************
A Movie Review by David Sunga
Directed by: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Written by: screen writer Becky Johnston based on the book by Heinrich Harrer
Starring: Brad Pitt, David Thewlis, Jamyan Jamtsho Wangchuk, Sonam Wangchuck, Tenzin Wangchuk, and Jetsun Pema
Ingredients: Austrian mountaineer, Dalai Lama, mountains
Synopsis: Rich Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer (Brad Pitt) gets sidetracked when World War II interrupts his mission to climb Nanga Parbat, a Himalayan peak that in 1939 has never been successfully scaled. Trying to get back to Europe, Harrer and climbing teammate Peter Aufschnaiter (David Thewlis) get stranded in Tibet, where they settle down, and Harrer becomes the tutor of the bright-eyed young Dalai Lama. (The Dalai Lama is the spiritual and political leader of Tibet). Harrer reluctantly leaves Tibet when Chinese forces under Mao conquer the tiny mountain country.
Trivia: Jetsun Pema, the woman who plays the Dalai Lamas mother in the movie, is actually the real life Dalai Lamas sister. In real life she takes care of Tibetan refugee children living in India and her organization has educated over 40,000 children.
The movie is based on the true memoirs of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, who is still alive today at age 84. Harrer was a Nazi in the 1930s, and Germany's Stern magazine published a photo of Harrer hobnobbing with Adolf Hitler.
Director Jean-Jacques Annaud is presently banned from entering China. The movie was filmed mostly in the Andes mountains in South America.
Opinion: Director Jean-Jacques Annaud directed two previous movies about a person being modified by contact with another culture (Quest for Fire and The Lover), so with Seven Years in Tibet, he was probably aiming for a movie where a brash jerk runs away from his home country and comes into contact with Tibet and slowly changes into a spiritual human being until finally hes ready to return. Annaud wanted to show the mountain climber learning to climb his own spiritual mountain, and symbolically he tries to show this by having Heinrich Harrers clothes change from riches to poor rags and slowly back to riches again. This doesnt quite satisfy. Usually in movies, when a character undergoes a change of heart, they demonstrate their newfound character by doing an action or making a difficult choice that they wouldnt have made under their old personalities. In Annauds movie, the hero makes no such difficult decision or actions. He wanders around Tibet, changes clothes a lot, and then leaves when the Chinese take over and the Dalai Lama advises him to leave. This lack of tough choices gives the movie only postcard depth, like "I went to Tibet, I had a lot of bad luck, ran out of options, and went back home to my responsibilities." Postcards arent bad though; the scenery is breathtaking, even if it was shot in the Andes mountains versus the real Himalayas. Having the Harrer character make one or two tough choices that demonstrate his spiritual redemption would have given this movie more punch.
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