Rating: 
Summary: No Shangri-La
Review: Ever since Ronald Colman raised the bar of expectation by his not so chance encounter with Shangri-La in the 1937 movie rendition of “Lost Horizon”, we have been trying to find our way back. Thanks to movies like “Seven years in Tibet”, we can focus on the real issues rather than paradise revisited.With the release of the movie version of Heinrich Harrer’s “Seven Years in Tibet” we are presented with a different story – one less fairly tale...Jacque Annaud’s...film allows us to move away from the fantasy created by “Lost Horizon”... Annaud succeeds in bringing Tibet to life, to make it more human, more real. As much as the story is Harrer’s, it seems inevitable that the focus moves away from him and onto the Dalai Lama. The book reads like an outsider looking at things from the outside in. The focus of the book, is all Harrer. Luckily, film has an ability to visualize the books cannot ever provide – a real immediate feel. The movie is everything and it at times almost feels like it will slide into Indiana Jones. However, the power of Tibet saves it. It almost feel like Pitt and Thewlis are out of place. The real stars are the set, the landscape and the Nepalese extras. Filmed everywhere but Tibet, the film does give its western audience a real soft landing, one that they will not get with Scorsese’s “Kundun”... Hollywood does need to supply a demand and we demand epic scenes, high priced talent, a sense of the exotic. As if east meets west and the fusion of the two is greater than the sum of the parts. For the attention to detail, I can’t help but sing the praises. If you can stomach Pitt’s fake Austrian accent, the film is a visual delight. It would be a tempting fantasy to hope that we can preserve it...
Rating: 
Summary: Why not to tell the whole story?
Review: I saw the movie and liked it. Then I read the book written by Heinrich Harrer, who spent 7 years in Tibet, and I realised that the filmmaker (J.J. Annaud) made a film that has nothing to do with the actual Heinrich Harrer. In the movie, Harrer is shown as a selfish man who can't stand anybody but him. But he meets and spends some time with the Dalai Lama and becomes a compasionate, cool guy ever after. From what can be read in the original book by Harrer, he wasn't at all a selfish man and he felt at ease being with other people. Annaud invented a new personality for Harrer in order to transmit some personal message. The Tibetan people and their way of living were also greatly simplified, in an attempt to hide any possible defect that feudal Tibetan society could have. It wasn't enough for Annaud that the Tibetan people have all our sympathy, they have to be perfect (at least from a PC viewpoint). I think that when it comes to telling the life of people and the fate of nations, a filmmaker must try stick to the truth, not creating facts in their lives in order to make a new story. In conclusion: if you want to watch a nice film about redemption, you might enjoy this film; but if you want to know about the Tibet and Harrer, you must read the book.
Rating: 
Summary: seven years too long in tibet!
Review: pluses: great footage of tibetan landscape, great cinematography in general, some interest stuff about the dalai lama minus (here goes!): brad pitt was TERRIBLE, couldn't do an austrian accent to save his life - i hate to say it, but arnold schwartzeneggar would have been better for the part; the story line, though interesting, was exceedingly shallow and hollywood, no depth whatsoever, ultimately quite dull; extremely grandiose and so sickly pro-western culture; and why couldn't they find a young tibetan for the dalai lama who didn't...have an indian accent. and i kept hoping someone would knock off brad pitt...and the movie would end.
Rating:
Summary: Oh please! This movie wasn't very good at all
Review: I'm writing this review mainly to tell everyone who isn't in love with Brad Pitt that this movie was good at all. I felt as if I'd spent seven years somewhere during this movie, seven years somewhere boring. The movie had about as much plot as pigs have wings. The movie centers around Brad Pitt's character who is neither likable or really that interesting. His relationship with the Dalai Lama in this movie which was originally what the studios used to sell this movie is barely a sideline. The movie was so bad that Battlefeild Earth looks like Star Wars in comparison. I hope all you ladies out there won't drop your ... to see yet another Brad Pitt washout. If you REALLY want to see Brad Pitt by Legends of the Fall or Fight Club now those two movies were excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Yes, the Cinematography is Great...
Review: I'm getting just a teensy bit tired of movies described as great when the greatest thing about them was the cinematography. I gather that we think when we can break down the elements that went into a movie - cinematography, sound, lighting, special effects, direction - we sound like we're knowledgeable about 'films'. I've done it, too. It's a way to weasel out of a dispute if anyone challenges my fondness or hatred for a movie. "Ah yes, you're right, it wasn't that good/bad overall. But the cinematography was good/bad." Since I'd noticed that the cinematography in Eraser, an incredibly boring movie, was good, I figure all I am is pompous. Anyway, the cinematography in Seven Years in Tibet is great, as are most of the individual elements. It's just that there's something a little flat about the story, which keeps the movie from being great. It's based on the real life story of Heinrich Harrer, who, from what I understand from other sources, had an interesting life, but wasn't an especially interesting character, nor an open or out-going one. With these restrictions, Brad Pitt does a good job with the portrayal. The look back at the Tibetan culture in the 1940's was interesting. Overall, the movie is better than Dances with Wolves (speaking of pompous), and not as good as Lawrence of Arabia (but then, what is?), and the quality of the DVD is good. It's not a wildly exciting movie, but it's entertaining and enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: A great movie for all to see
Review: I would give this movie four stars for two reasons. The first is the obvious, the story and the setting are beautiful. The combination of the Dalai Lama and a jerk of a mountain climber make it a contradicting movie. Also, this movie is important because it shows in a very real way the things that China did to Tibet. I had never heard of this story before I saw this movie, and I'm sure that many others hadn't either. It is an important story that needs to be told, and this movie is the perfect way to grab the attention of many people.
Rating:
Summary: a solid effort
Review: jean-jacques annaud does a praiseworthy job of directing this pretty hefty movie. it's a little long, but most of the scenes are crucial to the movie's integrity. this is a true story (for the most part), after all. brad pitt does and admirable job portraying the somewhat arrogant, but lonesome heinrich harrer. his austrian accent is pretty bad, but that's excusable. harrer's trek through the himalayas is interrupted by british officers who arrest him and his fellow climbers as POWs as WWII has started. he escapes with others, leaves them, only to be rejoined by peter, the expedition's former leader. they travel to tibet, only to be kicked out, but later return to the city of lhasa, where harrer eventually befriends the young dalai lama. the tibetan leader is portrayed as a wise, but curious youngster, who always hounds the austrian with questions about his world in the west. it's hard not to avoid the cliche of harrer playing a father to him, having essentially left his wife and child behind, but as the dalai lama points out, their relationship is "far too informal for that" to be true. harrer eventually leaves because of the chinese invasion, which is the major backdrop to this story, showing the horror of this important, but oft-ignored historical event. the movie gives us a chance to glimpse into tibetan life and culture before the chinese destroyed much of it. the book will point out a few inaccuracies of the film, but this is a fairly faithful translation. the scenery is beautiful throughout, and are enough to make this movie worthwhile on that alone. pitt has earned my respect even more, since "fight club" was his only other major film that i really enjoyed. this one is quite different though, don't be fooled.
Rating: 
Summary: Long on scenery. Short on plot tension.
Review: There's an attempt here to capture the symbolism of the child as the spiritual leader of humankind. After all, the child is older than the adult by a generation and therefore, evolutionarily speaking, the adult's elder. The idea that a child might be wiser than the adult is plausible since the child is not yet corrupted by the prejudices and delusions of the current society, and may see things more clearly than we can. If I had made this film, I would have worked on those ideas. Still I doubt success since what is really necessary is an illumination of Tibetan Buddhism, which is beyond the reach of a general audience. What Jean-Jacques Annaud does is keep the camera on his star, Brad Pitt, and hope Pitt's charisma will carry the film. It does not, although Pitt does a commendable job, his accent fading in and out notwithstanding. It's just that without any real tension in the story, the film is just a picturesque travelogue, and not a very good one at that. There is no attempt to come to grips with Tibetan society nor with the issues surrounding the Communist aggression. Annaud does work hard on the relationship between Harra and the Dalai Lama, achieving unfortunately a sort of Western mid-brow comprehension. I was going to say news magazine comprehension, but it doesn't even reach that. Harra shows the kid how to work gadgets and trades some superficial knowledge of the world while learning humility and social responsibility. The unavoidable irony that Harra plays the father to the Dalai Lama instead of to his own son was agreeable although acted out with entirely too much familiarity. Worse fault though is to just present the child as the Dalai Lama without attempting to show why a child is chosen in the first place.
Rating:
Summary: Another way of life
Review: It's very refreshing to watch a film that entertains, teaches and challenges you; so different from the majority of stuff that assaults us, literally, on the screen. There is not a single bad performance in this film, the cinematography is lush and breathtaking and the story touching and humane. It is astonishing, and embarassing, when a film about such a noble and compassionate people as the Tibetans reveals how shallow and broken we in the West are with our focus on violence and selfishness. And it is equally astonishing when people fail to appreciate a good film because of preconceived prejudices for some performers or because of a films' "length". We can only hope there will be more films like this one.
Rating:
Summary: Seven Years in Tibet
Review: Jean-Jacques Annaud has courage, no doubt about it. Before Seven Years in Tibet, he filmed The Quest for Fire, an extraordinary story about what fire meant to mankind in prehistoric times, and The Name of the Rose, based on Umberto Eco's novel. These weren't small challenges. In Seven Years in Tibet he has not a smaller task. He wanted to film a story about something that cannot be shown in images: redemption. Everything shown in the movie is just a subtle sign of a what is happening inside a man's soul, a little step toward his own redemption. Maybe this is not a perfect film (it probably isn't), but I was so caught by the way this spiritual journey was described that I couldn't tell.
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