Seven Years in Tibet (Full Screen)

This country liberated itself from Britain but inherited many colonial scars from Britan as the Tibitan issue.

This country fought a civil war for slavery, but unconciously sympathetic to the ghost of the most notorious slavery society: Dalai Lama.

What an irony!

Pitt seems brighter than the Play Girl icon and religion-lost R. Gear, but his taking of this role appears culturely illiterate.


propaganda   May 14, 2004
0 out of 9 found this review helpful

This film is a kind of propaganda. Historycally and oviously, Tibet has been a part of China for a thousand years and Tibetean is one of Chinese group. Now Tibetian redidents create great culture and Chinese people respect them.


A White Silk Scarf   May 11, 2004
Rebecca Whiting (Beautiful Bell Gardens, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This is a story about a stubborn and arrogant man who needs to push his body to its absolute limits, but who dedicates very little of his energy to his soul or intellect. Let us remember that films owe no debt to the books or the reality on which they are based (read the book "Monster" by the late screenwriter and author John Gregory Dunne if you need to get that straight).

Brad Pitt is not too bad as Heinrich Harrer, but you may cringe occasionally at his Austrian accent. Let us remember that this film may not have been made at all without his interest and participation, and it wouldn't have been permitted the sort of budget that gave us the amazing landscapes which pervade the movie.

I suppose once they had their big star, casting went for the very finest actors they could find regardless of their status: therefore, we have two beautifully resonant performances by David Thewlis as Pitt's climbing companion and Lhapka Tsamchoe as the Love Interest.

Because this movie is about Heinrich Harrer, not the Dalai Lama, we ought not to whine about the time spent in the camp for enemy aliens (those were YEARS of his life) or the difficult scrabble to simply exist once he escaped. The shots of the Dalai Lama's early childhood are there not only to foreshadow the important role the Dalai Lama ultimately plays, but also to establish a link between the child who will befriend Harrer and the son who Harrer does not know.

The authenticity and detail of Tibetan life, dress, buildings, and so forth is rare and overwhelming. Even if it was staged, it is a good record of a lost time.

With respect to the Chinese invasion as it is filmed, let us recall what "virtues" were instilled in the Army of the People's Republic of China. If the soldiers behaved like "automatons" or "killing machines", that was precisely the point. Leaders rarely want their underlings to think for themselves, and in Communist China such an activity was a capital offense. I see no disregard of history.

Further praise to the screenwriter (Becky Johnston) who translated a good book into a good movie. The addition of a few good laugh lines and the general development of character was well done.

Heinrich Harrer is an interesting man and merits a movie about his life. Of course, the elements of living in Tibet and developing a friendship with the Dalai Lama are crucial to the interest. For my part, I've watched the movie several times not just for its other virtues, but because I get deliciously lost in the scenery.


Where lies the truth?   February 28, 2004
Professor Joseph L. McCauley (Austria+Texas)
I haven't read the book of the same title by Mr. Harrer, but have seen the film twice, once in English and later dubbed in German. I liked it very much, and so did my sons. Watching it the second time on Austrian TV had the advantage afterward of seeing an interview with Mr. Harrer by a female journalist who questioned him pretty hard about the facts.

The film is taken from Mr. Harrer's popular 1952 book of the same title, describing his personal experience in India and Tibet. In the interview he stated that, for an American film, he likes it, likes the way it portrays Tibet, and has seen the film about a dozen times. His friendship with the 'Dalai Lama' (a western title unknown in Tibet) still stands, that they speak largely Tibetan with each other whenever they meet (the Dalai Lama likes Austrian food, and Mr. Harrer said that the Tibetan kitchen is also very good). In response to the questioner's attempt to find weaknesses in the film, Mr. Harrer said mainly that the film does not really give the sense of the hardship and adventure of surviving in the mountains all the way to Llasa (I believe it!), that their experience was far more 'abenteurlich' than is portrayed. So, according to the interview, the film is largely faithful to the facts, grossly seen, including the end scene of Harrer with his son planting a Tibetan flag on an Austrian peak.

Finally, the interviewer asked Mr. Harrer about the '97 Stern magazine article uncovering his Nazi past. This is where my problems begin in reviewing this film. The film is not about Brad Pitt, who is completely irelevant, the film is about Heinrich Harrer. I have a severe problem with films and novels that are not true to history. As one of the earlier Popes said, one should tell the truth even if it causes a scandal.

Mr. Harrer spoke in the TV interview of having 'mitgemacht' (participated) with the Nazis, and that he very much regrets it. An open admission of a very bad choice is a good sign. His expression and words had the ring of thoughtfulness, not of having been cooked. But why did he agree to a whitewash in the film until the Stern article appeared, and why was the past not accurately portrayed in his book?

Meanwhile, I have read the 1997 Stern article. According to that article, papers in the government archive in Berlin show that Mr. Harrer had joined both the SA and SS, which was a big step beyond the then then-standard required participation of teenagers with the Hitlerjugend. Apparently, Mr. Harrer regrets and rejects his early terrible choices, but Hollywood directors should not use a good story to make a film without first establishing the facts. Harrer's and Aufschneiter's Nazi affiliations were brought into the American-made film only after German journalists made public pressure by writing the facts in a German magazine. Germany was occupied by Allied forces until the mid-ninties. American bases still persist in Germany from that period. Historic responsibility for the Holocaust is taught in German public schools. Therefore it is not an accident that sharp reporters smelled something and went after it.

I plan to read Mr. Harrer's book. I would like to know his account of how he and his partner survived in the Himalayas during their escape from the British prison, and how they came to terms with learning to speak Tibetan in Llasa. That it was a great adventure is beyond question. That the SA and SS performed savage criminal acts under completely psychopathic leaders is also beyond question. Kristalnacht took place in 1938, street battles with guns took place between the SA and armed socialist paramilitary groups in the early thirties, and Hitler had long before that published Mein Kampf in the twenties. No one from that period can convincingly claim to have been ignorant of the intentions of Hitler and his Nazis.

In any case, that doesn't take away from the extraordinary adventure that Mr. Harrer tells us about. Will be interesting to read his book and compare with Elliot's "An Unexpected light: Travels in Afghanistan".