Seven Years In Tibet

The arrogant Aryan and his holiness the Dalai Lama: There's a pairing with which Hollywood could do some scary things. Fortunately, French director Jean-Jacques Annaud's resolutely un-Hollywood sensibilities forestalled anything on the order of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer (Brad Pitt) swinging in on a rope to rescue the youthful Dalai Lama (Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk) from Chinese bombings. Unfortunately, this visually sumptuous epic is the very definition of a "prestige production," swaddled in good taste and better intentions. Harrer's memoirs of the years 1939 to 1952 chart the profound personal transformation prompted by his friendship with the tee...