Seven Years in Tibet (1997): Dir: Jean-Jacquacs Annaud / Cast: Brad Pitt, David Thewlis, B.D. Wong, Victor Wong, Mako: It seems like it took seven years to view, or perhaps I drifted off to sleep (not difficult under the circumstances) and woke up during the following presentation of the film. Title regards seven years of a man's life and what he turned his back on. Had the director turned his back on this film then perhaps viewers would have been spared the extreme boredom. Set in 1939 Brad Pitt joins an expedition to scale Nanga Parbat. They are taken prisoner by His Majesty's Government in India where Pitt makes several escape attempts with inappropriate comic appeal. One capture takes no more than a quick stabbing then he is off and running again. When in Tibet they compete for a female tailor. Then the Dalai Lama enters the picture etc, etc. Throw in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and this film would be complete. Predictable and disjointed with horrible directing by Jean-Jacquacs Annaud. Pitt is miscast and Thewlis is cardboard. Together they turn in one of their worst performances and are joined by veteran actors B.D. Wong, Mako and Victor Wong who also ought to fire their agents after being part of this crap. Theme regards consequence particularly when Pitt is denounced by his son. Viewers should do the same with the film. Score: 3 / 10

"It is better to travel well than to arrive." - Buddha Based on a true story, Jean-Jacques Annaud's "Seven Years in Tibet" stars Brad Pitt as Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer. As he lived in Tibet between the years 1944 and 1951, Harrer witnessed China's "invasion" of Tibet. This "invasion" forced the 14th Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, to flee into India. "Seven Years" was released in 1997, the same year as Martin Scorsese's "Kundun". Both films present idealised portraits of theocratic, late-feudal Tibet. They romanticise Buddhism, fawn over the Himalayas, and pine nostalgically for Tibetan customs and traditions. In the hands of Annaud and Scorsese, the more radical and so interesting aspects of Buddhism are also ignored. Orientalism (portrayals of the East by the West which generally exhibit cultural bias and/or ignorance) typically represents Eastern cultures as inscrutable and mysterious. The West is offered as a bastion of logic, empiricism and science, whilst Eastern cultures are deemed esoteric, mystical and superstitious. In "Seven Years in Tibet", however, Harrer and the Dalai Lama take turns inhabiting the roles of "student" and "teacher". Elsewhere they ridicule each other's fussy customs and traditions, whilst also displaying a shared interest in science, geography and engineering. This is perhaps not surprising. With no holy writs, no deities, and with its interests in scientific enquiry, Buddhism's always been one of the more science-friendly "religions". Annaud's film climaxes with the Chinese army marching into Tibet and massacring Tibetan soldiers. In reality, this battle did not occur. Before his film closes, Annaud also informs us that over a million Tibetans died at the hands of "evil Chinese communists", a cooked number which most serious academics reject. Scenes like this make "Seven Years in Tibet" a covertly political film, the Dalai Llama presented as a saintly figure unjustly torn from his people and so deserving of political reinstatement. That the Dalai Lama leads only one branch of Tibetan Buddhists, and that the only people calling for his "return" are the unelected Tibetan royals who exploited Tibetans via a repressive military-ruled feudal state, are messy realities ignored by Annaud. That the Lamas speak for themselves and not the Tibetan people (just as every group of privileged exiles has turned to the United States to help them return to power, the Dalai Lama received CIA funding for a number of years), that half of Tibet's population were serfs or slaves before the Chinese arrived (the rest were under the autocratic rule of the Tibetan aristocracy), and that Tibetan peasants sided with Communists and aggressively attacked Tibetan-theocratic institutions, is likewise ignored. Indeed, Tibetan peasants were some of the most radicalised Communists in China precisely because they suffered heavily under their previous rulers. This is not to defend the actions of China – certainly the Lamas were capable of reforming Tibet themselves, certainly every populace deserves to be autonomous if it so wishes, certainly China's migration policies affect how Tibetans now vote on issues of independence – but to highlight the fact that Annaud has presented a sanitised portrait of the region.Most big films "about" Buddhism avoid the "tenets" of Buddhism. In "Seven Years in Tibet", Harrer and the Dalai Lama share a number of cute scenes, but philosophy largely remains off-topic. A better director would fully exploit the possibilities that this material lends – why does a character like the Dalai Llama, who renounces the ego, selfhood and private property care about quaint systems of land ownership and leadership? Didn't exile make the Dalai Llama a wiser man? etc – but again Annaud only cares about the superficial. The film costars Jamyang Wangchuk and David Thewlis. 7.5/10 – See "The Last Emperor", "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring" and "Into Great Silence".

I have never read Heinrich Harrer's book so I have nothing to compare the film to and no way to know to what degree the film has been fictionalized. So I have to rate this film as "a dramatized or fictionalized biographical film".I saw this movie when it first came out in 1997. This is actually the last movie I have ever seen in a movie theater. (Yes it's been that long since I have been to the theater).This is one of those movies I liked better than I thought I would - it was better than the previews lead me to believe. I thought the movie was actually good. It was heartwarming, a bit adventurous, and quite an interesting story.My rating is based on "just a Hollywood film" and not on if it is a perfectly accurate account or true to the book.8/10

This is a movie based on a true story about a German mountain climber who hid in Tibet during World War II. Moreso, it is about the final days of the independence of Tibet and more of a protest against China's invasion and war crimes in Tibet. Even with that, the movie focuses on the character and we watch how he changes during the time he spends here, and how he grows to understand himself.The movie begins with him running away from his responsibilities to his wife. His wife is about to have a baby, but he really does not want to be around. Instead he wants to climb Mount Everest and be the first person up there. This attitude ends up pushing his wife further away from him, and he discovers later that when he wants her, she is no longer there to help him.This is important as it develops his character, but moreso it has to do with his son. He is imprisoned in a British POW camp in India and as such he never gets the chance to see his kid. Even though he has no interest in fighting the war, he does not want to be a prisoner either, so he constantly tries to escape, finally succeeding with a larger group, but being a very independent person he insists on going off on his own. But what we learn though is that even though he independent, he also is foolish as he squanders all of his food.Tibet comes into it as he wishes to flee there to escape the British. Even then, the Tibetans do not want them in their land because they are simply foreigners, but they manage to escape there, and soon are welcomed in Tibet, especially since they are dying and hungry.The main changes come when the Dali Llama decides that he wishes to meet with this German. He finds this guy's world interesting, and he comes to see the Dali Llama as the son that he never had, but the thing is that the Dali Llama knows that he is not the guy's son. As their relationship grows, so does his understanding of himself, and in the end he finds the courage to return to Germany and to see his son.It is a long movie, but not only is it insightful, and we begin to feel for the plight of the Tibetans, it is also well made. Many films based on true stories generally fall down, but this is quite well done, and I enjoyed it.