Real footage of Lhasa filmed in the 1940's. In recent years, the dramatic plight of the Dalai Lama of Tibet has captured the world's interest and has inspired two major motion pictures: Jean-Jacques Annaud's Seven Years in Tibet (starring Brad Pitt as Heinrich Harrer, whose adventures in India and Tibet are dramatized). Filmed in Tibet, and then Argentina.
Smuggled out of Tibet, Harrer's 16mm color footage (taken in 1939-40) is featured in this reconstructed account of his long mountainous trek and actually records the Dalai Lama' s escape to India with the red Chinese army in hot pusuit. This real Seven Years in Tibet is a remarkable and historic screen document. 76 minutes, Region 1 DVD, (USA, etc).
Heinrich Harrer became the most famous of the original four from the Eiger climb. He lived into his nineties. After the Eiger Nordwand climb he joined a 1939 expedition to Nanga Parbat, a reconnaissance, but was arrested by the British in Pakistan once WWII started. His escape from the prison camp to Tibet and subsequent life with the young Dalai Lama led to his famous book, Seven Years In Tibet.
Harrer went on to become a consumate explorer and adventurer, much like Lowell Thomas, Eric Shipton and H.W. Tilman, but Harrer didn't limit his travels to mountains. Highly appreciative of native culture, Harrer travelled the world to remote mountains and jungles to experience the untouched civilizations. His adventures include trips to remote Amazon jungle tribes, Pacific Islands, remote Himalaya, and New Guinea where he and Philip Temple made the first ascent of Carstensz Pyramid, one of the Seven Summits [Denali, Everest, Vinson, Elbrus, Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, Carstensz or Kosciusko].
