Canberra filmmaker celebrates the Everest hero history overlooked

Tenzing (PG, 125 minutes)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The story of the other man, the mountaineer who reached the summit of Everest alongside Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953, has always needed telling. The famous image of Tenzing Norgay standing in bright morning sunshine on the roof of the world, planting an ice-axe handle fluttering with the flags into the ice, is the one that sticks. This telling of the story behind the first successful ascent of the world's tallest mountain now gives him his due.

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Genden Phuntsok brings quiet intensity to his character, mountaineer Tenzing Norgay. Picture supplied

These days such an awesome moment would make for the ultimate selfie. But in 1953 while one person stood in front of the camera, someone else had to take the picture. It's interesting that Hillary (Tom Hiddleston) appears to decline the photo opportunity, or he does not feel he can ask the favour of his climbing companion (Genden Phuntsok). It probably won't ever be quite clear.

After their incredible moment, a perilous descent awaited the men on the way back. Both were keenly aware that the British mountaineer who had inspired them both, George Mallory, had disappeared along with his climbing companion 30 years before. It was 70 or more years before Mallory's body was found.

Set in some of the most spectacular landscapes on earth, this new film from Jen Peedom is well served by its actors. Phuntsok brings quiet intensity to his character, the adult Tenzing. Abandoned by his parents, he had grown up as a family servant, looking after the yaks. Yet the boy dreamed big as he gazed across the valley towards the majestic peak of Chomolungma (Everest), the Tibetan holy mother mountain.

If the screenplay doesn't entirely explain the wellspring of Tenzing's ambition, it shows how his ideas were accepted by his spiritual leader Rinpoche (Tsering Dorjee Bawa) and his wife Dawa (Thinley Lhamo). And we are left in no doubt about what drove Colonel John Hunt (Willem Dafoe), leader of the British expedition, and his team: flying the flag at the top of the Himalayas to coincide with the coronation of a new young Queen, Elizabeth. In fact, news of the successful climb reached London just in time, on the day of the event itself.

As Hillary, Tom Hiddleston brings an easy physical confidence to this real-life action role, while mustering a reasonable New Zealand accent. After long-standing success as Loki in the Marvel superhero universe, he has clearly revelled in the demands of on-location shooting in alpine regions.

The beautiful white terrain with sculpted peaks and treacherous crevasses has been captured brilliantly by the cinematography, no surprise in the work of a filmmaker whose work has been largely in docos about the natural world, namely Mountain and River, glorious odes to nature which were written and directed in close collaboration with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. The stunning work on camera here by DOP Stefan Duscio (The Dry) and his team including Renan Ozturk (Sherpa, Mountain) offers us homebound mortals a taste of the allure and the terror that remote alpine regions offer the more adventurous.

The early stages of the climb were filmed in Nepal, under extreme conditions, while the remainder of the climb was filmed in the Mt Cook area in New Zealand.

Here Peedom has returned to the subject of her award-winning documentary Sherpa, the ethnic clan who carry the load for Western mountaineers who are too often inexperienced and under-prepared to realise their dream.

The book that has inspired this spectacular adventure film, great for family viewing, is Ed Douglas's Tenzing: Hero of Everest. Yet, we only need glance at the work of this Canberra filmmaker to appreciate the trajectory that has brought her to this point.

In terms of genre, Tenzing is a new venture for her. The terrific screenplay was written by the esteemed Luke Davies (co-creator of TV series Catch-22 and screenwriter for films Lion and Candy) and small scenes scattered through perfectly capture the cross-cultural dynamic between the sherpas and the foreigners, and the debate that Tenzing was having with himself.

The result is a very human story; strong, confident and moving. The question that seems to have exercised commentators for decades, as to which man reached the top first, is answered here, but the point the film makes so well is that it took teamwork anyway.

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