Word: annaud
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...China's brutal, 46-year occupation of Tibet. But just as both open with the soulful moan of Tibetan horns overlapped by the eerie, two-toned chanting of monks, the spiritual underlay of both is Tibet's ornate, pacifistic Buddhist belief. Says Seven Years director Jean-Jacques Annaud of his film: "Buddhism is everywhere." And he is right. Pitt's hair shines with its usual otherworldly luster, yet it is upstaged by the inner glow of his Tibetan co-stars. "I have to stay here," the young Dalai Lama says when offered a chance to escape the Chinese. "Saving others...
...happier he is. The wind's blowing at 90 m.p.h., there's dust in your eyes, bombs going off, and he's shouting in this wild French accent, 'We must shoot. We must shoot now!' He's like Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now." Sounds as though Jean-Jacques Annaud is just the fellow to film Harrer's life...
...family and domestic associations. Pitt's gruff, distracted and distant demeanor, his clipped and uncompassionate manner, is convincing he is by no means likable. In fact, as the audience does not identify or sympathize with him on his pre-Tibet misadventures, the movie's first half seems aimless, and Annaud dangerously skirts the edge of alienating the audience by depriving them of something to latch onto...
...Annaud doesn't hit you over the head with anything, but he now allows prolonged glimpses of the beautiful Tibetan landscape, and almost on a dime, Pitt is inspired to treat people with some respect. Once Harrer reaches the city of Lhasa, the screen explodes with color as the Tibetan customs, artwork and religious traditions are presented. The stimulus-starved audience gains new focus immediately on a suddenly human Harrer and his attempt to assimilate to his new surroundings...
While the audience is eating this up with a spoon, Annaud smoothly slips in political issues concerning China's occupancy of Tibet and the ongoing struggle of the Dalai Lama to maintain Tibet's traditional peaceful position. Both Harrer and we the viewers--who have been in parallel states of emotional responsiveness the whole way through--are at this point immediately receptive and sympathetic to the urgency of the Tibetan cause. In only half a movie, the audience comes to buy a complete shift in a character's personality, a familial reconciliation which was at first daunting and allegiance...