Aloha Everyone,
Seven Years in Tibet
The movie is based on a 1952 memoir written by Austrian mountaineer and Shutzstaffel (SS) sergeant Heinrich Harrer. Classified as a biographical war drama, it took place in Tibet between 1944 - 1951.
What is interesting is that unintended political and personal circumstances brought Harrer and Peter Aufschnsiter, two highly competitive Austrian mountaineers to forge a necessary friendship.
Harrer, played by Brad Pitts, becomes one of the tutors to the young spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama. 14th Dalai Lama’s insatiable appetite for knowledge, keen retention of information and his sense of humor is illustrated in the film.
14th Dalai Lama now lives in Dharamshala, India. He is 88 years old in poor health, but it has been reported that his mind is sharp, and he still retains his witty, dry sense of humor. Harrer remains friend with the 14th Dalai Lama.
There are brutalities of the war camp as well as the invasion by Chinese soldiers. I would like to listen to the soundtrack of the music composed by John Williams and a feature performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Horrible and gory visuals drowned the music.
The Dig
This is based on a true story which began in the late 1930’s. Edith Pretty, a wealthy landowner hires Basil Brown, an amateur archeologist to investigate the mounds on her property. Basil Brown prefers to refer to himself as an excavator sharing the curiosity of archeology, discovering the past with Edith Pretty.
Sophisticated story of love, trust and respect combined with professional jealousy and egos, individuals finding themselves and true love.
Here are a couple of my favorite quotes attributed to Basil Brown.
“We all fail. Every day. There are some things we just can’t succeed at. No matter how hard we try.”
“From the first human handprint on a cave wall, we’re part of something continuous. So don’t really die.”
The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society
Tongue twisting title caught our eyes. The story and characters are fictional, but a great deal of the film is based on true events and facts on what happened to Guernsey and other Channel Islands when the Germans invaded and occupied this British territory during WW II.
Aloha -- Cathi