Tenzing is very much a biopic of the moment, made in a time of urgent conversations about who gets to tell their own stories and how. Although directed by an Australian, the film is focused on the ascent of the most famous Sherpa to have summited Mount Everest.
In the history books, Tenzing Norgay is hyphenated with the New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary when discussing their feat of becoming the first men to have successfully scaled the world’s highest peak. But in Jennifer Peedom’s Tenzing, Hillary is just one of many people whom Norgay meets over his eventful life.
The film, which is out on Apple TV, stars Tibetan actor Genden Phuntsok as Norgay. Indian actor Tenizin Dhala reunites with his Shambhala co-star Thinley Lhamo to play the younger Norgay and Norgay’s first wife Dawa.
The 125-minute film moves between the present, when Norgay joins a British expedition that includes Edmund Hillary (Tom Hiddleston) in 1953, and Norgay’s experiences as a child and a young adult. Right from a young age, Norgay is desperate to climb the mountain that he worships. The world calls it Mount Everest, after a British surveyor. Norgay knows the mountain as Chomolangma – Mother Goddess of the Earth.
His childhood is spent in poverty. As...