Seven Years in Tibet: Once again Orientalism

Directed by Jean- Jacques Annaud

This is a story about the famous Austrian mountaineer and his countryman Peter Aufschnaiter. In the autumn of 1939, they set out to climb Nanga Parbat, one of the highest peaks in the Himalayas. The self-centered Harrer, whose sole preoccupation was the achievement of fame and glory, would experience an emotional awakening on his fantastic journey that would take him form the heights of conquest to the depths of internment in a British prisoner-of-war camp, then from escape and a harrowing two-year trek through the Himalayas to the mysterious Tibetan city of Lhasa.

As a stranger in a strange land which few westerners have ever visited, Harrer was befriended by the young Dalai Lama, and was asked to tutor the religious leader in English, geography and the ways of the Western world. He would eventually spend seven years in Tibet, during a period of tremendous political upheaval in that country, graced with the friendship and the spiritual enlightenment of the young Dalai Lama. As the deep and abiding bond between these two isolated, lonely people evolved, the selfish and egotistical Harrer experienced selflessness for the first time, allowing him to complete the emotional transformation which began on his way to Lhasa.

It is a description about the film Seven Years in Tibet from a movie website as well as the cover of the VCD. For the first glance, the movie entitled with ‘Tibet’, audiences may think that it would be a movie about the seven years in Tibet of the Austrian mountaineer Harrer, such as how he lived in the Forbidden City Lhasa and developed a friendship with the young Dalai Lama You may also treat it as the beginning to know more about Tibet since most of us have never been to there before.

However, after you see it, you may feel disappointed. The movie is divided into two main parts as the description does. The first half of it nearly unrelated to Tibet, except several very short shots seemed to show the images of Tibet: monks, temples, snow capped mountains etc. It recorded the failure expedition of Harrer to Himalayas and his life in India as a prisoner, followed by his vagrant life with Peter Aufschaiter ( another mountaineer) after escaped from the prison. His life in Tibet then began when the movie had an hour left behind. Interestingly, this movie also slightly shows some of their view toward communist party.

Medias, books and advertisement of travel agents construct the fantasy of Tibet. We have a lot of imagine of Tibet from them everyday. ‘Mysterious Tibet’, seems to be the ‘must’ description can be found in all kinds of media. When we mention Tibet, we always like to add ‘mysterious’ as an adjective in front of it. It seems that ‘Tibet’ is unable to get rid of the image of ‘mystery’. Besides mystery, the monks, the temples, the plateau and the snow capped mountain ranges also be the symbols of Tibet. Unsurprisingly, whatever you think of Tibet can be totally found in this movie. To me, it is a movie which tries to reconfirm the platitude image of Tibet rather than provide a flash experience. Once again, it shows the western altitude toward an eastern ‘unknown’ place.

At the very beginning of the movie, a dark background with smokes was shown along with the deep low sounds which always heard in temples. Then, many statues of Tibet’s Buddha and the murmuring monks appeared. Whenever the temples and the monks were shown, the screen was dull. Light was never enough and the figures were vague. All these represented Tibet was mysterious.

From a letter written by Harrer to his son, he described Tibet like this: If you can imagine a hidden place, tucked safely away from the world... concealed by walls of high, snow-capped mountains...a place rich with all the strange beauty of your nighttime dreams...Then you know where I am…In the country where I'm traveling - Tibet - people believe if they walk long distances to holy places...it purifies the bad deeds they've committed...They believe the more difficult the journey, the greater the depth of purification ...In this place where time stands still, it seems that everything is moving… Harrer, as a westerner, expressed his view toward Tibet. It is a peaceful, quiet and isolated place. The scenery is amazing and beautiful. He also mentioned the holy journey of the Tibetans. They were faithful and totally committed to their own believed religion. The movie was full of these scenes even at first part. They were intercepted during the adventure of Harrer in order to record the growth of the young Dalai Lama. When Harrer and Aufschaiter arrived to the Tibetan city of Lhasa, they found that the Tibetans were nice and hospitable. They lived in a simple way, never think of compete with others. By a speech of Pema, a Tibetan tailor who later married to Aufschaiter, she said that Tibetans never show off did not admire the rich or the top people as Harrer did. They respected to the nature. That’s why they tried to not kill any earthworms while the cinema was constructing. Let’s come to the discussion of the young Dalai Lama. In the film, he was described as so studious and curious about the western world. He was eager to learn new knowledge from Harrer. When he was at his early aged, he played with the slides. The slides were about three western famous cities. They were Paris, Venice and New York. As he grew up, he always liked to obverse the world outsides the temple. This symbolized the curiosity of the Dalai Lama of the western world. Finally, the movie described about the communist army. Red flags and paintings of Chairman Mao were hanged everywhere. The soldiers were uniformity. They invaded Tibet. They used many cold- blooded ways and relatively advanced weapons to kill the monks and Tibetans. The used of bombs, plenty of explosion and the fear expression of the Tibetans demonstrated the cruel and aggressive of the communist army. Undoubtedly, the movie provided a negative impression on the communist party as a norm of the western cultural. It declared a very clear political stand point: the communist regime was an aggressor as well as a dictator. The Tibetans were weak and unable to defense themselves. They were the victims.

It seemed to be a very simple and clear documentary. It told the adventure of Harrer, his friendship with Dalai Lama, his spiritual transformation and the invasion of the communist army. However, down underneath, it also inspired with another ideology. This leads to the discussion of Orientalism.

In a simple word, Orientalism is a post- colonial study mentioned by Edward Said. It is the maintenance and extension of European hegemony over other lands. European cultural gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient. European ‘knowledge’ about ‘Orient’, in fact, was an ideological accompaniment of colonial ‘power’. A lot of stereotypes, images, and ‘knowledge’ of colonial subjects and cultural are then produced. For examples, the monks, the temples and the beautiful mountains ranges, all of them are the stereotypes and images of Tibet.

In the film, the hegemonic idea was consistent: the Occident remained superior to the Orients. Aufschaiter was a gentleman. He was nice and courtesy. He admonished Harrer should have principles and not to be selfish. Harrer, appeared to be handsome, successful, bravery and knowledgeable. Although he was selfish at first, he had spiritual transformation and became considerate later. Even the Nazi officials, they dressed well and looked smart. They ordered the Indian soldiers to work. All the ‘white- man’ characters were well presented. Contrarily, non- Occident characters were presented in a different way. On one hand, the movie seemed to appreciate the Tibetans so much. But as the mean time, the Tibetans were also described as superstitious, ignorance and backward. They were stupid that treated the instruction of the first aid kit as the permission for Harrer and Aufschaiter’s entrance to Tibet. The Tibetans clapped their hands when they saw Harrer and Aufschaiter (the strangers) the first glance to symbolize the safety from evils. They used the ice- skating shoes as knifes to cut meats. Pema commanded the western suits as strange clothes. Harrer said the Tibetans used the backward weapons to fight against the Communist army. Besides, the movie described the Indians also. They were dirty. They work as coolies and had to obey the German (Occidental) officials. The young Dalai Lama always liked to pursuit the western knowledge. As I mentioned before, he played the slides of western cities like New York . He hided to play with these slides and escaped the traditional lessons. This represented he was only interested in the West and his ideas was dominated by the West at the very young age. As the young Dalai Lama grew up, he used the telescope to look for the outside world. But this action was stopped by an elder monk. The old monk explained to Dalai Lama that he was the spiritual leader and should not to do so. The outside world, once again, represented the West. Dalai Lama had interest to the outside world meant he was curious about the West. The restriction of the old monk reflected his stubborn and represented the tradition of Tibet. It seemed to demonstrate that the tradition tried to forbid someone to access to the West. When the young Dalai Lama met Harrer at the first time, he was so excited and eager to learn from him. He would like to learn about the world you come from. For example, where was Paris, France? And what was a Molotov Cocktail? And who was Jack the Ripper?"…He also asked Harrer to build a film house, an amusement developed by the West. None of them were related to the tradition. He learnt the news from the world, geography and world of media Dalai Lama, as a prominent figure of Tibet, was described as very fond of and admired the West cultural. The West was more preferable. At the critical moment under the communist army invasion of Tibet, Harrer never acted as an outsider. He knew there was hopeless for Tibet to gain victory. He still tried his best to do some help to Tibet. He really wanted to protect his beloved friend, the Dalai Lama. Once the Dalai Lama had a nightmare and cried. Harrer went to comfort him. This implied the norm that the occident was always be the protector while the orient was protected.

Later on, Tibet was betrayed by the minister Ngawang Jigme. He led the army to surrender at a very strategic city. Tibet was sure for lost at this moment. Harrer went to Ngawang Jigme’s home and hit him even he was the protected by the communist guards. This showed his compassion to Tibet ( the weak), angry to the betray of Ngawang Jigme and did not frightened in the front of the communist guards. He did what he think directly, would not hide his feeling. From this incident, Harrer, as occident, just like a hero and had high moral standard while Ngawang Jigme, as an example of Tibet, was so dishonorable and disgraceful. In conclusion, this movie seemed to show a true picture of Tibet. It was able to fulfill all our imagination of the Forbidden City of Lhasa as well as the Tibetans. In fact, the beautiful scenery of ‘Tibet’ was taken at Canada and Argentina. Most of the Tibetans didn’t speak in English as their daily used language. They had their own language. How ‘real ‘ of the ‘Tibetans’ in the movie should under consideration also. This documentary film did not close enough to the truth. It did tell an unforgettable journey of Harrer in Tibet and his valuable friendship with the Dalai Lama. To certain extent, this was really touching. Yet, it was a film produced by westerners. They infiltrated a lot of their views toward Tibet. The main theme of this movie was the emotional transformation of Harrer, not Tibet, not the Dalai Lama. It demonstrated the elegant and objectives of moral of the West. It was a film of westerner rather than Tibet.

References:
http://movieweb.com/
http://www.salon.com/ent/recent.html
http://www.apolloguide.com/film.shtml

Remark: Introduction to Cultural Analysis essay