2 1/4 hours everywhere but in Tibet
USA, 1997 directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud written by Becky Johnson, based on Heinrich Harrer's autobiographical novel, cinematography by Robert Fraisse, music by John Williams
with Brad Pitt, David Thewlis, B.D.Wong, Mako and Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk
130 min 40 sec, 1:2.35 seen at the Kurbel, Berlin The key sequence in Seven Years In Tibet occurs halfway through the movie. A Tibetan boy meets a blond young man in a colourfull room put in the darkness, and asks him if he likes movies, what an elevator is and what the identity of Jack the ripper is.
Vienna 1939. The mountain climber Heinrich Harrer (Pitt) leaves a lousy marriage and a pregnant wife (as well as a nazi Austria) to join an expedition to the Nanga Parbat, one of the world's highests peaks, under the command of Peter Aufschneider (Thewlis). WWII breaks out, they find themselves prisoners in India, escape and eventually reach Tibet fives years later. At this point, fans of Mr Thewlis (so good in Naked) can leave the theater, he vanishes from the movie. Fans of the Dalai Lama (one of the global village's few icons) can enter in silence.
I have always been puzzled by Jean-Jacque Annaud's career, a French director whose first directorial efforts have absolutely nothing in common with his latest epics (La Victoire En Chantant is about French colonists lost in WWI's Africa, Coup De Tete about a soccer team in the provincial town of Auxerre). Now that supporting Tibet against Red China has become fashionable in Hollywood, he brings to the screen Harrer's book with a major star in the lead. Considering the state of this industry today, this story containing neither aliens nor natural disasters, it's unlikely the film would have been made without Mr Pitt's commitment - though I don't see Robert DeNiro among the cast of Martin Scorsese's own Tibetan epic, who'll open later this year. So we'll have to be thankfull to Mr Pitt, without whom this exemplary two-way ausbildung story would have never been told.
The result is a technically superior film features gorgeous landscapes (I kept wondering where was what shot, since the Chinese government is so mean about whatever deals with Tibet), nice and sensitive music by John Williams, a very handsome young actor and a talented one, who as I said before disapears quickly. I must confess Mr Pitt is really convincing when he throws himself on the barbed-wire fence of an Indian prisoners camp. Mr Annaud's mise-en-scene is fluid and light and I'm happy to testify that there are still some gifted men able to tell a classic tale without being boring nor wasting their talent with superficious visual effects. Thanks Heaven, the parallel between the young Dalai Lama and Harrer's abandonned son is not overstressed.
This may however be badly received, hence the absence of romantic heroism, like, say, becoming a nazi to recover a dead body. Of course the film lacks the depth of the mythical Lost Horizon and Black Narcissus, which were shot in Hollywood and in England respectively but delivered a rich universal message - blame it on the fact that 1997 is a time to cynical (perhaps even to cynical to believe in its own cynism) to enjoy such well-told and entertaining tales.
No nudity, but meany Chinese people and a dead horse being eaten. Seven Years In Tibet opens on November 13 in Germany
(C) Vincent Merlaud
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