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The hidden cost of Nepal's lucrative climbing industry is revealed in this accomplished documentary.
By Paul Byrnes
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★★★★
In 2013, a fight broke out on Mount Everest between Nepali Sherpas and some European climbers who had insulted them. That was unprecedented, completely at odds with the Sherpa image established in the public mind in 1953 by the smiling Tenzing Norgay, who reached the summit with Edmund Hillary. Seeing footage of the fight cemented Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom's decision to return to the mountain, which she had not visited since 2006.
Peedom had become close to the Sherpas on her first visit in 2003. She had returned several times as a high-altitude director on various documentaries, including her own prize-winning film about Lincoln Hall's survival, Miracle on Everest. The fight footage made it clear that the Sherpas were no longer willing to be docile. Her idea was to follow two Sherpas: one a vastly experienced climber, Phurba Tashi Sherpa, making his 22nd ascent, which would be a new world record for a single climber; the other a young woman making her first attempt.
That all fell apart on April 18, 2014, when a 14-million tonne block of ice sheared off above the Khumbu icefall and killed 16 Sherpas – the worst day in the history of Everest climbing.
Peedom shows us this event early in the film and it's her first major ethical challenge. What to show? She keeps the cameras rolling in the base camp as the veteran New Zealand climber Russell Brice – whose expedition she has joined – directs the rescue effort. She does not film at the accident site. We see events through a long lens from base camp, as the Sherpas try to dig out their friends. Brice is beset by problems, as Sherpa rescue guides demand to go on the first chopper, ahead of the doctors. He overrules them. We then see heartbreaking images of the choppers flying the dead down to base camp, one lifeless body after another dangling from a rope beneath the helicopter.
After most of the bodies have been recovered, the Sherpas go home to their families. No one knows if the climbing season will continue. Hundreds of climbers, most from the West, are stuck at base camp. All have paid a lot of money – up to $US100,000 ($133,000) – to climb. Brice cancelled his 2012 expedition after it had begun, worried about conditions on the mountain. His decision was controversial: no other companies cancelled. Some of the same clients are back in 2014 to have another crack. They want to climb. When the hundreds of Sherpas return a week after the tragedy, their mood is angry.
Sherpa is an accomplished, gripping film. Brice's dilemma, to cancel or continue, is painful to watch. None of his men was killed, but he's not sure the Sherpas want to climb. He clings to the idea that it's just "a few hotheads" who want to cancel, but that may be a way of placating his clients. The tension contrasts with the beautiful location, established in a series of breathtaking time lapses. Peedom gives us a sense of the mythic grandeur and romance, then the reality: climbing Everest has become big business, with an average of 600 people reaching the summit each year. There are traffic jams on the mountain, and climate change may be making it more dangerous.
No one reaches the top without the Sherpas. They carry every tent, bottle of oxygen and barrel of water up ahead of the paying customers. The southern route passes through the heaving Khumbu icefall, a glacier full of crevasses that no one would cross if there was another way. Each paying climber crosses it twice, up and back. Each Sherpa crosses it up to 30 times a season, usually at night because it's more stable when it's cold, and carrying a huge load. This is where the accident occurred.
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Sherpa is as much about families as economics. Phurba Tashi's wife, Karma, wants him to stop climbing. She lost her brother on the mountain last year. "He needed the money." The Sherpas believe that Everest, which they call Chomolungma, is a holy place, the mother of the world. Phurba's mother wants him to stop climbing: "It's shameful to God."
The Sherpas can earn 10 times what most Nepalis earn in a year but they know that they're still only getting a small fraction of the pie. Sherpa is about the moment in 2014 when they realised they hold the reins: they decide who can climb and when.
@ptbyrnes
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