This material occupies the first half of the movie, and yet strictly speaking it has nothing to do with it. The mountain-climbing scenes (shot in the Andes) are splendid but not very original Heinrich saves Peter despite a broken ankle, they are nearly killed by an avalanche, the war begins, and they're interred in a British POW camp, from which they finally escape.
He and a guide named Peter Aufschnaiter ( David Thewlis) are soon on the peaks. War is about to break out, but he is indifferent to it, and cold to his pregnant wife ("Go-leave! I'll see you in four months!''). Harrer is preparing an assault on the difficult Himalayan peak of Nanga Parbat. Consider Livingstone and Stanley, the first Europeans to see vast reaches of Africa, who are remembered mostly because they succeeded in finding each other there. On Saturdays-the day of rest-people now played chess or halma, or occupied themselves harmlessly with word games and puzzles."Seven Years in Tibet'' is an ambitious and beautiful movie with much to interest the patient viewer, but it makes the common mistake of many films about travelers and explorers: It is more concerned with their adventures than with what they discover.
After mah-jongg had been stopped, it became gradually evident how everything else had been neglected during the epidemic. And they brought it off! I would never have believed it, but though everyone moaned and hankered to play again, they respected the prohibition. They forbade the game, bought up all the mah-jongg sets, and condemned secret offenders to heavy fines and hard labor. Finally the government found it too much of a good thing. The stakes were often very high and everyone played-even the servants, who sometimes contrived to lose in a few hours what they had taken years to save.
People were simply fascinated by it and played it day and night, forgetting everything else-official duties, housekeeping, the family. At one time this game was a universal passion. In Lhasa every trifling object is locked up and double-locked. But to show that she is mistress the lady of the house always carries a large bunch of keys around with her.
They do not have to bother about housekeeping, which is all done by the servants. They spend hours making up their faces, restringing their pearl necklaces, choosing new material for dresses, and thinking how to outshine Mrs. Women know nothing about equal rights and are quite happy as they are. If an official has guests or any other reason for not coming, he just sends a servant to a colleague and asks him to officiate for him. They turn up at the office late in the morning and leave for their homes early in the afternoon. “Tibet has not yet been infested by the worst disease of modern life, the everlasting rush.
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