Spanning over decades and continents, The Eight Mountains depicts the kind of childhood friendship that remains central to one’s whole world. While city boy Pietro (Luca Marinelli) treks from the Alps to the Himalayas, the mountain pasture of Grana remains special as his father’s old refuge and as the hometown of childhood best friend Bruno (Alessandro Borghi). When they were younger, the two struck a summer friendship as the only two boys in the small town. However, their friendship isn’t the kind formed through day-to-day, routine interactions. Instead, each moment they share is fleeting, cut short by circumstances, but therefore, all the more precious. Co-directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch slowly and patiently craft intermittent moments that form a lifelong friendship. And at the end, when they last bring us back to Grana, these moments are all we have left of this profound, meaningful connection.
"As beautiful in its visuals as it is poetic in its homage to friendship."
— Rafa Sales Ross
"The Eight Mountains offers all sorts of ecstatically beautiful footage of the Italian Alps, but it also spins out a delicate, rueful story about trying to find a balance between nature and work..."
— Alison Willmore
An epic journey of friendship and self-discovery set in the breathtaking Italian Alps, The Eight Mountains follows over four decades the profound, complex relationship between Pietro and Bruno.
After his father’s death, city boy Pietro aims to fulfill his father's dream of constructing a cabin with childhood friend Bruno, who he left in the Italian Alps years ago.
With its setting, The Eight Mountains is expected to have gorgeous views of the mountain pastures of Grana. The film delivers, but every view is supported by the film’s excellent cinematography. Yellows, browns, and blues mark the duo’s early years, while their connection later in life is renewed in grass green and campfire orange, ending only in pale white winter. Each time the film shifts to an indoor, cave, or night scene, excellent lighting is used to highlight their cast’s faces, most especially that of Pietro/Luca Marinelli. The orange lights from campfire or lanterns create a chiaroscuro-esque frame that emphasizes their expressions.
Oh, to build a cabin in the mountains with my bestie…
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1 nomination
