For millennia Tibet has been protected from intrusion by the tallest guards in

the world, the Himalayan Mountains. There in the 7th Century A.D. a culture all
but unremembered first mixed with Chinese culture. Until relatively recent
history it was a culture that was so isolated that it could go its own way and not
be very much influenced by any other culture in the world. Seven Years in
Tibettells the true story of two Austrian climbers who happened to be in Tibet
during its years of fastest change, probably the only Europeans in the country
at the time.

In Austria of 1939 lives Heinrich Harrer (played by Brad Pitt), a world-renowned

Olympic athlete, a member of the Nazi Party as a matter of style, and a totally
selfish boy-man. He abandons his pregnant wife--who is nearly due to give
birth--over her objection and he goes on a four-month climbing expedition in
the Himalayas. His first shock is to discover that the expedition will be led by
an awkward-looking climber, Peter Aufschnaiter (David Thewlis).

Harrer determines to undermine the ungainly man's authority and to make

himself the star of the expedition for the press. His little battle only gets him
into trouble, first of the sides of the mountain to be climbed, then when war
breaks out in Europe the troop of climbers are captured by the British in India
and imprisoned in a POW camp. Harrer fights a two-front war against the British
imprisoning him and against Aufschnaiter's authority. Eventually Harrer and
Aufschnaiter escape from the camp, lead the British a chase through India, and
flee across the border into Tibet, a country officially closed to foreigners. The
two lie their way into the capital city of Lhasa, a beautiful mountainside city
forbidden to any non-Tibetans. After some time there dealing with the
bureaucracy of monks, Harrer is given counsel with the Dalai Lama. The great
lama, still a young boy, finds he likes the brash German. Harrer becomes a
friend, confidant, and teacher to the boy. The warm relationship between the
two forms the core of the film. But their relationship is cut off when the country
is virtually stolen by invading Chinese Communist troops.

There has been discussion on whether this was a good role for Brad Pitt or not.
As the supercilious Heinrich who finds his humanity by loving Tibet, Pitt was
fairly believable. I had the feeling that if I had never seen him before I would
not have thought twice about whether this part was right for him. In fact
associations with previous films were about the only thing that got in the way
of the credibility of the story. We have people like Victor Wong of The Joy Luck
Club and Big Trouble in Little China; Mako of Conan the Barbarian; and B. D.
Wong, whom we saw around the incubator in Jurassic Parkand flitting around in
Father of the Bride. It almost makes the film seem less Asian to see these
actors present. David Thewlis has turned in one good performance after
another over the last four years since he stood out in Mike Leigh's Naked. The
Dalai Lama, played by three boys of varying age, seems not so much a font of
wisdom as an unending source of simple straightforward curiosity, mostly
about Western culture. Jetsun Pema, who plays the Dalai Lama's mother is in
reality the Dalai Lama's sister. The film is directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud,
who directed The Name of the Rose and The Bear. As with the former, the
setting is main attraction of the film.

One disappoint of the film is that the actual time covered in Tibet is shortened
by a long introductory section. The screenplay by Becky Johnston spends nearly
half of the film just getting Harrer and Aufschnaiter to Lhasa so that the story
from that point forward seems rushed. Most of the adventure, however, is in
the first hour, with some harrowing scenes of mountain climbing. The stories of
escapes, bound by the truth, seem almost cliched. John Williams spices the
score with eerie Tibetan music. I rate the film a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.