If you find yourself playing catch-up on the issue of Tibet, you may want to start with two recent movies, both now available on video. And, if you ever have a chance to see it, a third movie offers equal if not greater interest, though it’s not yet available for the small screen.
Seven Years in Tibet, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, offers a way into greater understanding of Tibet through the true story of a Western sojourner, a mountain climber from Austria named Heinrich Harrer (Brad Pitt) who, together with another compatriot, is more or less marooned in the isolated mountaintop country of Tibet, after their escape from a WWII P.O.W. camp in India. Eventually, this exotic Westerner is introduced to the very young Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of the country, and then later invited to build a movie theater for the young man’s further education and entertainment.
The focus of Seven Years is on the Brad Pitt character and his gradual progression from being an extremely egocentric macho-type to being more of a real human being. Some of this change may be owing to his contact with Tibetan culture (workers refuse to continue digging a foundation for the theater when they discover imperiled earthworms), some to his contact with the young Dalai Lama, who finally has to inform Harrer that he is not a substitute son. (Harrer has more or less deserted his own son back in Austria.) Maybe most transforming for the Austrian, though, is the rude shock of discovering that a beautiful Tibetan maiden prefers his less good-looking friend over himself as a husband.
As a story about learning to be less selfish, this is all pleasant enough. But the movie does allow glimpses into turbulent Tibetan life as the Chinese step up their encroachments prior to their 1951 invasion. Of course, the sympathies of the film are entirely with the Tibetans; the Chinese are represented emblematically as oafs who would be capable of grinding their heels in one of those lovely Buddhist sand mandalas. Although one Tibetan official is singled out as a traitor, this is a device to allow the reformed Brad Pitt character to denounce him. And the final image of the movie is the reformed egotist reunited with his own son, climbing mountains again. Nevertheless, the movie offers a story-based introduction to Tibet.
Kundun, directed by Martin Scorsese, focuses on the Dalai Lama himself, without the Westerner-in-need-of-reform. The very idea of a Dalai Lama, chosen, no matter what his station in life, because he’s discovered to be the reincarnation of the deceased previous Dalai Lama (and therefore of the Buddha of Compassion) is unavoidably magical and somewhat Cinderella-ish. Still, there is a real attempt in Kundun to get beyond the fairy-tale outline and make us feel what it must be like to be a peasant boy suddenly discovered as that reincarnation. Obviously, when you think about it, it can’t all be like a wonderful dream; in this movie, a four-year-old child is separated from family and made to live in an ancient, rat-infested palace surrounded by court intrigue and various tutors. On the other hand, it might be nice to see your older brother forced by custom to kow-tow before you.
While Seven Years left off at the time of the Chinese invasion, Kundun takes us another eight years further in the history of Tibet, up to the moment in 1959 when the Dalai Lama barely made it across the border into exile in India. The focus of the movie is on the Dalai Lama’s struggle to decide whether to stay or leave his country. At first, after the Chinese invasion in 1951, he tried to make the best of a bad situation, even going to Beijing to meet with Mao. (The actor playing the middle-aged Mao looks more like Mao than Mao did.) At the end of the visit, Mao’s parting shot to the still young Dalai Lama (in his 20s) is, "You have much to learn. Religion is poison."
Subsequently, the Dalai Lama undergoes his own peculiar mental torture as his countrymen and women, many of them monks and nuns, undergo physical torture and execution at the hands of the relentlessly socialist, modern, anti-religious Chinese. There is a dream sequence embarrassingly reminiscent of the famous Confederate wounded scene in Gone With the Wind, in which the Dalai Lama, pitifully helpless, imagines himself surrounded by all those killed by the Chinese — their bodies stretch out for what seems like miles on the hillside around him.
But should he stay or should he go? Does his staying protect at least some of his people, or does he have to go before he is completely reduced to a pawn of the Chinese? Does he go down with his ship, or escape and attempt to rescue the ship some other way? It’s not an easy choice, and the back-and-forth nature of his thinking is reflected in the unobtrusive but powerful musical score by Philip Glass. It should be noted that this script avoids a complete demonization of the Chinese by having the Dalai Lama remark, "The ironic thing is we were just about to reform ourselves," a hint that Mao’s dictum was not entirely off the mark. (Still, you can’t help but think Mao’s antidote — modernization via invasion and destruction of a culture — is worse than the "poison" of religion.) The movie creates a very strong image of the suffering survived by the Dalai Lama in this period, which helps to illuminate his current capacity for understanding and forgiveness.
Both these films create a sense of place, though neither was filmed in Tibet. Seven Years used Argentina, Kundun Morocco, but the illusion of the palace and the light in the mountains is reportedly in keeping with the actual experience of Tibet, and the costumes are authentically lavish. Since none of us is likely to visit Tibet any time soon, these movies fill a void by helping us sense what the place must be like. Or, sadly, what it was once like.
Despite the scenes of Chinese looting and carnage included in both Seven Years and Kundun, a more subtle and more indelible indictment of the Chinese is contained in a third film, a documentary about Tibetan medicine directed by Franz Reichle. The Knowledge of Healing focuses on the personal physician of the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Choedrak, and his practice among Tibetans exiled in India. The film communicates on a slant. For example, at one point Choedrak treats a young nun, and she gives a very matter-of-fact recounting of the torture she underwent, which has left her with her illness. Perhaps because she is so unemotional in her recounting — detached, as Buddhists might have it — the effect on viewers is quietly devastating. We will need all the wisdom and compassion of the Dalai Lama himself to forgive the Chinese for this misstep.
The Knowledge of Healing also is the translated title of the illustrated scroll from the 11th Century that guides Tibetan doctors in their practice, which includes the prescription of pills made from fruits and plants. The film cuts between the work of Dr. Choedrak and the comments of a Swiss pharmaceutical entrepreneur and an Israeli medical scientist, both of whom extol the benefits of Tibetan remedies. Also included is the case of a man in Mongolia diagnosed with kidney cancer, who consults both a Western doctor and a Tibetan doctor and seems to find the more efficacious cure with the latter.
The Dalai Lama himself appears as a patient at one point in the film and, in a charming I-can-relate moment, he is suffering from what seems to be a very bad head cold and fever. Later, he makes a statement proposing a compromise between Tibetan and Western medicine, not choosing one over the other, but trying either one if the other isn’t doing the job.
This film was shown in May at Facets, and if there is enough demand (you can try writing Charles Coleman at Facets), or if a Buddhist organization wants to co-sponsor its presentation, it may be shown again. It isn’t possible to say at this point when it might become available on video.