What to stream: Scale new heights with 'Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa'

By gqlshare on July 31, 2024

By Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

A new documentary premiering on Netflix Wednesday, July 31, tackles a unique subject that is long overdue for exploration. "Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa," follows the life of Nepalese mountain climber Lhakpa Sherpa, who was the first Nepali woman to successfully summit Everest, which she has now done 10 times, the most of any woman.

Directed by veteran documentary filmmaker Lucy Walker, the film chronicles Lhakpa's incredible achievements alongside the turmoil of her private life. Now the mother of two grown daughters, she has taken her daughter Shiny to Everest base camp to impart her mountain wisdom, and find personal redemption as a pioneering outdoor adventurer.

Other documentaries and films about women mountaineers and climbers are few and far between, which is why Walker's film is such an important one. There are several short documentaries about female rock climbers on ReelRock.com, a hub for rock climbing film, and there's also the documentary "The Wall — Climb For Gold," about the first female rock climbers to compete in sport climbing at the Olympics, an event that debuted at the 2020 Tokyo Games (available for rent on iTunes, Amazon, etc). But rock climbing and mountaineering are far different endeavors.

There are of course many films about male mountain climbers, like the 2021 Netflix documentary "14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible," about Nepalese mountaineer Nirmal Purja attempting to climb 14 eight-thousander peaks in seven months, and Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Vasarhelyi's 2015 film "Meru," streaming on Prime Video, Tubi and Kanopy. They won the Oscar for their film "Free Solo" (2018) about rock climber Alex Honnold, streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.

There's Baltasar Kormákur's 2015 narrative drama "Everest," based on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, and starring Jason Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, Sam Worthington and more (Jon Krakauer's blockbuster nonfiction book "Into Thin Air" is also based on these events). "Everest" is streaming on Max.

Among all these male-oriented mountain movies, "Mountain Queen," stands alone, and finds a slim subgenre with other films about adventurous women, like "Maiden" (streaming on Starz, or for rent on iTunes and Amazon), about the first all-female sailing crew to enter the Whitbread Round the World Race, and the similar "Maidentrip," about the youngest person (a 14-year-old girl) to sail around the world alone (streaming on Tubi and Kanopy).

But still, these films about young white women taking on adventure is a different tale than Lhakpa Sherpa's unique life story. Growing up in Nepal, she was called to the mountain, despite women not commonly being allowed to join expeditions. Walker dissects her story with care and thoughtfulness toward her charismatic subject, but doesn't hesitate to cut down to the emotional bone, examining Lhakpa's tumultuous marriage to a fellow mountain climber, and her struggle to raise her children while also breaking records for summiting Everest.

Walker has a talent for these kinds of emotionally searching documentaries about people in extreme situations. She has an anthropological eye while keeping a focus on the humanity in a story, and her many documentaries cover a variety of topics, from 2013's "The Crash Reel," following the rivalry between professional snowboarders Kevin Pearce and Shaun White, including Kevin's life-changing car crash and comeback (streaming on Prime Video, the Roku Channel, Freevee), to her 2021 film "Bring Your Own Brigade" (streaming on Paramount+) about the aftermath of the 2018 Camp fire, the most destructive in California's history. But "Mountain Queen" is one of her best, and most fascinating films yet — be sure to catch it on Netflix.

Katie Walsh is the Tribune News Service film critic and co-host of the "Miami Nice" podcast.