Long before a cast of trendy Hollywood celebrities "discovered" Tibet and the plight of the Dalai Lama, Heinrich Harrer, a renowned Austrian mountain climber, lived a real adventure in the mountain kingdom as thrilling and seductive as the present film.
Harrer’s book of the same title, a true story, follows a traditional path, like an ancient trade route retraced by modern tourists, of Westerners making a life-changing journey to the East. In 1943, Harrer and his friend Peter Aufschnaiter escape a British P.O.W. camp in India and steal over the border into Tibet, a country forbidden to virtually all foreigners.
By their wits, nerve and sheer determination, the two cross the vast, desolate interior of Tibet, reduced to rags, nearly starving and menaced by murderous bandits. "On to Lhasa!" the holy city, becomes their rallying cry. They are accepted in Lhasa as orphans of the storm beyond the high, seemingly impregnable walls of the Tibetan world. As seasons pass, Harrer tells us how the Tibetan culture has been structured for centuries. The occasional Western influence is measured for its fitness: soccer was tried and banned, but tennis and skating were permitted.
One very illustrative incident that the film faithfully recreates is when Harrer (Brad Pitt) witnesses the rescue of worms and other lowly creatures from the shovels of ditch-diggers. Harrer writes vividly of the spectacular rituals and displays that surround the spiritual ruler of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, whom he first sees in a parade: "The cathedral doors opened, and the young God-King stepped slowly out. Now the Living Buddha was approaching. He passed quite close to our window. The crowd was frozen. We kept saying to ourselves, ‘It is only a child.’ A child, indeed, but the heart of the concentrated faith of thousands, the essence of their prayers, longings, hopes."
Harrer recounts becoming this God-King’s tutor within the walls of his immense palace, the Potala, in more detail than the film can cover. But it is true to the book, and Pitt embodies the transformed Teutonic type, including the blond hair and whiskers that Harrer says the Tibetans found fascinating. Indeed, the entire film's spectacular look and unhurried pace capture the world Harrer came to love.
But neither faith nor mountains could keep out the devastation of Communist Chinese invaders. The Penguin/Putnam edition includes Harrer’s photographs and his 1996 epilogue that summarizes this tragedy, yet finds a grain of hope: "The Dalai Lama and his people will never give up. My vision is that all those who love Tibet and freedom will accompany the Dalai Lama when he returns to the monument of Tibetan genius, the Potala."
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