Don't get the impression from this that I don't like Brad Pitt. I do, and I think he's a terrific actor. He does a great job in Tibet with a supremely unlikable character: Harrer is an arrogant, unrepentant asshole at the beginning of the movie; by the end, after his arduous physical and spiritual journeys, he is at least repentant. And he was a Nazi, which the movie has gotten a lot of criticism for underplaying (wrongly, in my opinion -- I think it makes it pretty clear he was a Nazi and doesn't try to apologize for it). My feeling is, if the Dalai Lama is okay with Harrer, then who am I to criticize? On the other hand, the Dalai Lama seems to be okay with Steven Seagal, too... some things are just too much to ask of me.
The real star of Tibet is the cinematography -- color, light, and scenery combine to awe, dazzle, and stun. The vastness of the landscape dwarfs the human actors and gives the movie a sweeping, epic feeling. The mountain climbing scenes are particularly exciting (though after reading Into Thin Air, I couldn't help wondering how the climbers had the breath to shout at each other and smoke cigarettes at 22,000 feet). You MUST see it in a theater, because once it's panned-and-scanned for video, it'll be a different (and lesser) movie.
I really enjoyed the movie -- if it's not perfect, it's welcome for its intelligence, beauty, heart, and spirituality. Pitt, as I said, is excellent, and the supporting actors, especially David Thewlis, who I never quite got before this, and the young Dalai Lama, are all very good. The leisurely pacing seems right for this type of spiritual movie, though it's nicely interspersed with some well-done (and horrifying) action scenes. China is everybody's favorite villain right now (at least in DC), and Tibet presents whole new reasons to villify the Chinese -- the brutality with which they conquered a country that, militarily speaking, makes Switzerland look like a major-league ass-kicker is stomach-churning.
MY CLOSING
RANT: As always, it's about the idiocy of the audience.
This crowd took much the same attitude toward Tibet that Harrer
initially
did: "Look at those kooky foreigners! Ha ha! Aren't
their
clothes funny! How ridiculous is that insistence on respect for
all
life?! Let's chat about where to eat after the movie during one
of
their sacred rituals!" It's distressing, to put it mildly, to
hear
a theaterful of people laughing when Harrer demonstrates the goosestep
and the "heil Hitler" salute to Tibetan villagers. Or am I just
too
sensitive?
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