Seven Years in Tibet

Seven Years in Tibet was part of the Biografklub Danmark package, but I did not really feel much like seeing it; I did so anyway... It was a good decision, for if you are going to see Seven Years in Tibet, it should be in a large cinema auditorium where sound and picture can really come into their own.

The film begins with the mountaineer Heinrich Harrer's departure from Austria and from his young wife, who is expecting his child. Climbing the mountain Nanga Parbat in Kashmir is more important to Heinrich than child and wife, however, and he turns out to be a rather unsympathetic person. He is arrogant, proud as anything and incredibly selfish.

Heinrich and the other climbers have to abandon their goal because of the weather, and that is not all. Because the Second World War has broken out, they are interned by the British, but after a few years they manage to escape. Together with the expedition's leader, the decent Peter Aufschnaiter, Heinrich reaches Tibet. What is more, they gain access to the forbidden city. There Heinrich becomes teacher and friend to the young Dalai Lama, which helps to change his personality radically. For the first time he feels responsible for others besides himself. The idyll is shattered when the Chinese invade Tibet. Heinrich goes home to Austria and to his teenage son, who has acquired a new father in the meantime. The Dalai Lama, however, will not leave his people, but as we all know, he eventually felt forced to.

The film gives a gripping and easily understood account of Tibet's fate while also working as a coming-of-age story.