Seven Years in Tibet

Twelve years in the Tibet area, 1939-1951

“Seven Years in Tibet” (1997) is a biographical historical drama about Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer (Brad Pitt) and his time in Tibet and friendship with the Dalai Lama, a boy, just before & during WW2, as well as the build-up to the invasion of Tibet in 1950 by Communist Chinese forces and the immediate aftermath. David Thewlis is on hand as Heinrich’s German mountaineer friend.

The movie’s similar to other realistic walk-to-salvation wilderness adventures, like “The Way Back” (2010). Pitt is charismatic as the pompous mountaineer who is slowly humbled in the highest region of the globe. The movie couldn’t be made today since it paints the Chinese Communist Party in a negative light; in other words, it’s truthful.

The film runs 2 hours, 16 minutes and the bulk of it was shot in Argentina at the city of La Plata and the Andes Mountains in the Mendoza Province, while about 20 minutes of footage was secretly shot in Tibet.

GRADE: B

Brad Pitt is acclaimed Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer who leaves his expectant wife to climb in the Himalayas. A couple of high-altitude mishaps and the commencement of WWII see him and colleague Peter Aufschnaiter (David Thewlis) interred by the British and confined to a POW camp. After a few failed attempts, the pair manage to escape and after some perilous trekking through the hostile wilderness, they find themselves at the gates of the holy city of Lhasa. Foreigners are not especially welcome here, but they are fed and watered and gradually become accepted to the point where Harrer is introduced to the Great Mother and thence to the young, curious and engaging Dalai Lama himself. The spiritual leader takes a shine to his new friend with golden hair and the older man regales him with tales of wonder from the outside world. Simultaneously, their much larger and increasingly more territorial neighbour has clear designs on Tibet. With troops massing on the borders, the precarious nature of the independence of this small country becomes more obvious and, well history is never far from the narrative. I think Pitt plays well as the arrogant climber and as the story develops so does his character - from a selfish loner to one who learns to care for things greater than just himself. To that end, Thewlis also delivers strongly as the pair bond - despite themselves, sometimes - and "Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk positively oozes a decency and spiritualism as the boy who is fighting a losing battle against those who think religion is a "disease". Though it does rather oversimplify the politics, this film is beautifully shot with some genuine Tibetan scenes around the amazing architecture that is the Potala Palace and by the denouement you can't help but empathise with a nation that just wanted to be left in peace to live in peace.