Sherpa

Everyone knows that documentaries tell the truth. Well, at least somebody's version of the truth. On the one hand there are participative documentaries like Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) starring its interventionist director Michael Moore, and on the other hand there are observational documentaries like Sherpa (2015) where the camera is the chief story-teller. Unlike movies, the doco aims for a higher social purpose and in Sherpa it is to show the world how the real glory of climbing Mount Everest belongs an exploited ethnic group in the mountains of Nepal. As historical gatekeepers for the Himalayas, their existence has depended on risking their lives so that Westerners and others can experience what it feels like "to conquer Everest".

Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom starts out asking why the traditionally friendly Sherpa guides turned aggressive towards tourists in the 2013 climbing season. The widely reported brawl was triggered by a single swear word directed at a Sherpa, igniting tensions that were simmering since Hillary was Knighted for his 1953 ascent while Sherpa Tenzing received lesser credit. In the middle of filming the brawl story, a massive avalanche claimed 16 Sherpa lives. Suddenly it is about the politics of an ethnic group demanding respect, no longer prepared to risk lives for meagre wages from an industry hosting thousands of tourists each year and charging summit climbers $75,000 – $100,000 for the privilege. The camera becomes a witness to tragedy, then grief that turns to anger and political activism. Audiences become judge in a case involving ethnic discrimination and the commercial exploitation of people who have been used as cheap mules. It's a complex dilemma with no easy solutions because the same commercial interests have done much to improve the lives of Sherpas.

The film shows political sensitivity in telling the story from the Sherpa viewpoint. Its great strengths lie in extraordinary cinematography and sound recording under the most chaotic high-altitude conditions a filmmaker can ever experience. The camera works skilfully across the visual pleasures of vast mountain-scapes to angry grief stricken Sherpa faces and frustrated tourist climbers, with a soundtrack of howling wind, crunching ice and hammering stakes that viscerally creates a 'being there' feel. Peedom lets the story tell itself without manipulative editing, and it is highly engaging while being informative about a world that few of us will enter. It is beautifully filmed and teaches much about Sherpa life and their struggle for recognition.

This film was intended to be a follow up to a situation that had occurred the year prior in Everest, when there was a near riot by the Sherpas directed at climbers, due, we're told, to an increasing feeling among the Sherpa community that their skills and incredibly dangerous work was taken for granted by the climbers, the commercial companies and their government. Poorly paid, poorly insured, regularly dying - and starting to resent this. Sherpas aren't just mountaineers, they're the local people of the area, their wives, their families, their communities, desperately poor and highly reliant on foreign money from the ever increasing number of mountaineers, from which the Nepalese government take a 30% royalty, amounting to $180 million yet provide the communities with so little . This Australian documentary wanted to see what was happening and why the Sherpas might be so angry and "rebelling" after this high altitude fracas. What happened next gave the viewer an answer the film makers will never have expected. Totally tragically 16 Sherpas were killed by an ice fall in the most dangerous part of the climb, the negotiation of the Khumu Ice fall, which the climbers do twice but the Sherpas perhaps twenty times in supplying the camps. The surviving Sherpas became, naturally, very distressed, and following some very emotional meetings, decided to call off the rest of the season, at great person financial cost to themselves and their communities, but preserving their pride and respect for themselves and those that had died. But Russell Bryce's reaction was so incredibly insensitive, patronising certainly, but much worse than patronising, truly lacking humanity and compassion. HIs major concern appeared to be his commercial operation, blaming all the problems on a few young troublemakers who didn't know any better than to misbehave. This was echoed by the other foreigners, the climbers and the commercial operators, one even going to describe the angry Sherpas as "terrorists". Any Westerner, and certainly any New Zealander (Russell is one), with any sense of humanity or humility watching this documentary, the breathtaking scenery, and the literally breathtaking work of the Sherpas, would come away feeling more than a little ashamed of the attitudes that so many of our fellow Western travellers displayed in this film. Yet Russell Bryce has operated his company for twenty years; over that time he must surely have developed some sort of humane rapport with the Sherpas he employs? But it make one wonder, indeed, was that "rapport" just that of master and servant, and has he still not awoken to the fact he has made his money out of a severe imbalance in power, race and culture, that I thought might have been a bit more diluted since the long past days of the Raj, but in which view I would seem to be seriously mistaken.

A great documentary but shows the west in a bad light - idiotic Americans saying some of the Sherpas are terrorists because they don't want to go up the mountain and die for peanuts. It followed a tragic day when 16 Sherpas died in an icefall.

The expedition leader Russell Brice comes across terribly, implying that a handful of Sherpas threatened to attack other Sherpas if they carried on climbing, when this simply didn't seem to be true!

Hopefully things will change for Sherpas and the west will stop plundering these people and pay them what they deserve.

This film manages to shine a bright light onto the heroic and humble Sherpas who come across as having a great deal more humanity and dignity than some of the climbers that rely upon them. It's simply unbelievable that in the 21st century someone can bleat on about what the Sherpas "owners" might think about their demands! That chap needs to climb into some elementary school or undertake some self awareness training for his next expedition. This contrasts with Phurba Tashi, a Sherpa with 21 ascents under his belt, a mountaineering giant who has retained amazing humility despite his achievements and who shows remarkable self control and dignity whilst being patronised in front of his Sherpa brethren. In many ways his final decision just demonstrates his excellent judgment and courage. There is no preaching here by the filmmaker - all the film does is let us see the realities. It's an important mountaineering film.

I went in expecting a 'spectacle documentary' but Sherpa turned out to be so much more.

As with so so many great documentaries, the film-makers went in expecting to make one type of film and came out with something much more than they could surely have hoped.

The spectacle of the cinematography should be enough to draw an audience; if that fails the human story is powerful - moments of heavy emotion and a heart-rending look in a wife's eyes still rattle about in my head.

Many other themes are strewn throughout also, giving the film a pleasing depth - politics, racial divides and differences, economic realities of mountain life and exploitation of nature amongst them.

One of the greatest triumphs for me is that we go on our own expedition with the subjects but also with the film-makers: As their plans become derailed and their film goes in a direction they could not have expected we join them - We find ourselves embroiled in real- life drama and tragedy in perhaps the most dramatic of all locations on Earth.