'Collaboration, co-operation & connection': AppleTV's Tenzing reframes conquest of Mount Everest

Tenzing revisits the story of the 1953 conquest of Mount Everest. But instead of framing it as an external achievement, the film focuses on an unsung hero on the team who saw the ascent as part of a spiritual quest. Seen here in a still from the film are: Tenzin Dalha, Willem Dafoe, Genden Phuntsok, Harry Greenwood, Tom Hiddleston and Pasang Arya Sherpa Photo by Kirsty Griffin /AppleTV

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Director Jennifer Peedom’s biographical drama Tenzing reframes the 1953 conquest of Mount Everest as a story of spiritual purpose, equality and friendship between two outsiders.

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More than seven decades after Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were first to summit Mount Everest, their achievement is still fixed in the popular imagination. But in this film streaming on AppleTV, Peedom pulls back on that familiar image of the pair atop Everest (8,848.86 metres) and tells the origin story of Norgay, a Himalayan climber whose name was too often placed second behind Hillary’s.

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Tom Hiddleston and Genden Phuntsok star as Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in the new Apple TV film Tenzing. Photo by AppleTV /AppleTV

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Played as an adult by Chinese actor of Tibetan descent, Genden Phuntsok, Norgay is introduced not as a supporting figure in a British triumph but as a man pursuing a lifelong calling. The film, filled with all the grandeur and danger of a mountain epic, follows him from childhood in a sacred Tibetan valley through years of expedition work, family life, grief and repeated attempts on Everest, or as Tibetans call her, Chomolungma “mother goddess.”

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For Phuntsok, the importance of the film is the view it offers. Earlier Everest stories have largely arrived through a Western lens. Tenzing places Tibetan and Sherpa experiences and culture at the centre.

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“I think this movie shows all the world Tenzing’s perspective,” said Phuntsok. “There no movie just telling the Sherpa people’s perspective and from Tenzing’s perspective.”

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Peedom, who came to the story well versed in the topic after making the 2015 documentary Sherpa, structures the story through flashbacks and flash-forwards, with Samdrup Dorje Lama playing Tenzing as a boy, Tenzin Dalha as a young man, and Phuntsok carrying the role through the final ascent. This approach delivers the weight of an entire life.

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In the film, Norgay is treated as an outsider by other kids, Sherpa and the climbing teams he joins. But Norgay refuses to define himself that way.

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“(The outsider), that is not a big problem. It’s how you think about yourself, and wherever you go, like Tenzing, you will belong to that location,” said Phuntsok as he compared Norgay to an animal that travels in Norgay’s part of the world. “Tenzing, like a snow leopard, who climbs every snow mountain around the Himalaya ridges, belonged to the snow mountains.

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“Sometimes, he felt alone and he was treated like an outsider, but I think he depends on himself, his spirit. And I think it is a really important spirit.”

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Phuntsok hopes the narrative of inner belonging will speak to viewers who feel isolated. Norgay’s example, he suggests, is not that barriers disappear, but that a person can keep moving through them without accepting someone else’s definition of who they are or where they belong.

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“I really hope the Tenzing movie can give them encouragement,” said Phuntsok. “You are not alone. Your spirit is always with you … and, one day, you will get to where you want to get.”

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Genden Phuntsok, Tom Hiddleston, Willem Dafoe and Benjamin Hoetjes in Tenzing, now streaming on Apple TV. Photo by Kirsty Griffin /AppleTV

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The spiritual aspect of Norgay’s story is central to the film. To Western climbers, Everest is something to be conquered, a prize to win. To Norgay, the ascent is an intimate and reverential pilgrimage shaped by memory, belief and belonging.

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Peedom’s film also exposes the class and cultural hierarchy embedded in early Himalayan expeditions.

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Sherpas carry equipment, set up camps, guide teams and cut routes through the ice, all while shouldering much of the risk and receiving little of the glory.

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Norgay wants something different.

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When British Colonel John Hunt, played by Willem Dafoe, offers Norgay the position of head Sherpa for the 1953 expedition, Norgay refuses. He wants a place on the climbing team.

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After people push Norgay’s case, and Hillary reminds Hunt that Norgay had already gone higher on Everest than almost anyone alive, Hunt relents and puts Norgay on the climbing team.

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Hillary, played by Tom Hiddleston, enters that journey as another outsider, a New Zealander on a British expedition. The partnership between Norgay and Hillary becomes the film’s emotional centre.