For example, to film the coronation scene of the young Dalai Lama, he decorated “The Hall of Good Deeds” from floor to ceiling in authentic Tibetan style, complete with painted lintels in orange and blue dozens of streaming prayer banners dangling from the balconies, and countless frescoes of colorful buddhas, staring out from the walls, hands raised in the mudra of “No Fear.” To ensure accuracy, the director retained Tenzin Tethong, former prime minister in the Tibetan government-in-exile, as his advisor on everything from ceremonial protocol to the exact color of red in the monks’ robes.Īt times, the detail achieved by the 57-year-old director defied imagination. They included some 75 monks from India and Jetsun Pema, sister of the Dalai Lama. He also rounded up an international cast, which was centered around some 175 Tibetans who were assembled from around the globe and flown to Argentina for three months of shooting. (It was built in an abandoned garlic warehouse outside the city of Mendoza in western Argentina.) The dozens of spectacular sets ranged from a 220-yard long re-creation of the capital city of Lhasa (built in the foothills of the Andes), to a 9000-square-foot re-creation of the legendary Hall of Good Deeds in the Potala, the ancient palace of the Dalai Lama. To re-capture the experience, Annaud, who has established a reputation for meticulous detail in films such as Quest For Fire, The Name of the Rose, Black and White in Color, and The Bear, literally rebuilt Tibet in Argentina last fall.
“One is to make a very good, entertaining movie the other is to make a movie that is going to be one of the few to witness the culture of Tibet as it was…and explore the impact of that culture on one man.” “Our efforts here have two levels,” Annaud said. There he discovered Buddhism, became the first Western adviser to the young Dalai Lama, and walked away a changed man. camp when World War II broke out, and then escaped by climbing over the Himalayas into Tibet. The $60 million film, which stars Brad Pitt and is set for release this October, is based on the best-selling memoir by Heinrich Harrer, the world class mountain climber who set out to climb Nanga Parbat in India, wound up interned in a British P.O.W. But none compares to the scope and challenge of his current undertaking, Seven Years In Tibet.
Throughout his career, the French director Jean-Jacques Annaud has prided himself on ambitious films that focus on the human heart in conflict with itself.
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