TENZING****

Director Jennifer Peedom (SHERPA) brings all of her love and knowledge of the Himalaya to her first fiction feature, a biopic of the legendary mountain climber Tenzing Norgay.  He was the first man, alongside New Zealander Edmund Hillary, to both successfully summit Everest AND descend safely*.  

Norgay lived an extraordinary and contested life. Screenwriter Luke Davies (LION) chooses to frame it as an outsider story in a beautifully constructed if sometimes rather exposition-heavy script. The film is made up of three timelines.  The successful summit is the framing story, but we flash back to Tenzing as a young Tibetan boy and also as a young Nepalese man. 

Why the change in geographic descriptor?  Because Tenzing's family were poor Tibetan farmers whose herd was laid to waste by disease. They were thus forced to become refugees in Nepal seeking work, and left a young sick Tenzing (Samdrup Dorje Lama) in the care of some Buddhist monks, never to be seen again.  And so, Tenzing grows up as an outsider in Nepal. He is manifestly NOT a Sherpa, but of a different caste, and he has no prospects or family. All he has is his desire, growing up in the shadow of the sacred mountain, to climb it in awe and reverence.  

At this point we switch to the middle Tenzing (Tenzin Dalha), a charming but rather hapless young man whose main assets are his self-belief and the love of his childhood sweetheart.  She has run away with him to Darjeeling, India, where the European summit attempts are staged from.  He has to cut his hair and learn English and even then struggles to get a spot as a "sherpa" because, well, he is not a sherpa.  But how can you not hire Mr Amazing?!

And so we move back to the framing story, where Genden Phuntsok is now the mature Tenzing, the man who has come as close as any (bar maybe Mallory) to ascent and is trying again with a new British-led expedition.  Once again he is an outsider, because he is neither accepted by the Sherpa that he commands nor is he accepted by the rest of the full members of the climbing team that he has lobbied to join.  Despite showing incredible mountaineering skill, it becomes increasingly clear that the British, led by Willem Defoe's Colonel John Hunt, would rather have two of their own make the summit attempt, rather than a Tibetan man and a Kiwi.

Still, in the end, the mountain demands meritocracy. And so it is Tenzing and Edmund Hillary (a wonderfully restrained and generous screen partner in Tom Hiddleston) who make the ascent. Although we mountain fanatics know every step of that journey, I must confess that I was absolutely enthralled by its re-enactment. It got a little dusty in the theatre when Col Hunt wished Tenzing well on the final push, and when Ed Hillary fixed his mask just before the peak.  It was a thing of true beauty, made all the better by both men giving such restrained performances.  We are meant to be in awe of the mountain, and they really do portray that all-consuming fascination and reverence beautifully.

And what of the mountain?  Director Jennifer Peedom and cinematographer Stefan Duscio must be praised for their awe-inspiring photography of the real Himalaya and the New Zealand high mountain stand-in.  It is beautiful and awe-inspiring and immersive.  So while this will be an Apple TV release I would really encourage you to see it on as big a screen as possible. The added bonus is that you will then truly enjoy Rebekka Karijord's score.

TENZING has a running time of 2hrs 8 mins. It played Telluride and Toronto and opens in the USA on October 9th and will stream on Apple TV from October 16th.

*To this day it is debated whether Mallory ascended three decades earlier - I believe he did, but if you don't make it back it is not deemed a successful summit for obvious reasons.