Fantastic film, but the same tired lack of non-white voices

Rating: 8/10 (1 October 2015)

This is a great film. It's action-packed, based on a true story, and has surprisingly good performances, even from Keira Knightly, who is starting to grow on me.
The cinematography is absolutely stunning, and for someone who is deeply afraid of heights, this gave me some idea of the glory of scaling the world's highest peak.
The story is simple, but well told. But after so much critique off-screen of the historical failure to recognise the help and leadership that sherpas provide on Everest, including the initial failure to recognise Tenzig Norgay, it seems very difficult to understand why this film focuses solely on its white, largely male, characters (with one Japanese woman given a few lines, but not really a storyline). One character is introduced as the 'head sherpa', and it's clear in the film that when the foreigners can't achieve something they send in the sherpas to do the work. So why don't the sherpas have characters and subjectivity?
While every tense moment for the white men (and women) is tracked, a potential part of the plot, in which a sherpa has to turn back while trying to rescue the main character, is given no attention whatsoever other than to show the turnback. What went through that character's mind? Was the decision a difficult decision to make? How did the sherpas cope not only scaling the mountain, but carrying the main characters' items and helping them up the mountain.
These seem like especially important issues given that even today, people pay small fortunes to climb Everest, while sherpas die and are paid very little for their work in Nepal. This film had the opportunity to at least provide them with some subjectivity but utterly failed to do so. For many this won't hinder the plot or the film, but this is how we keep perpetuating an exclusively white, and largely male history.