The Eight Mountains Review
The narrator muses in Paolo Cognetti's "Le otto montagne," "If the point at which you immerse yourself in the river is the present...then the past is the water that has flowed past you." The Eight Mountains, a cinematic version of Cognetti's book that was co-written by the author and the filmmakers Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, follows Pietro (Luca Marinelli) as he grows from a young man to an adult. The Eight Mountains is a contemplative movie that, like the book it was based on, uses its extensive running time to draw you in and take you through the roughly four decades in which it follows Pietro's friendship with Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), a friendship that is achingly pure even as external forces change the course of it.
In the Italian Alps one summer, Pietro and Bruno cross paths. The two have quite different upbringings: Bruno lives with his aunt and uncle while his father does construction jobs, while Pietro's family is renting a cabin for the summer before moving back to the city. These early sequences are expertly staged by Vandermeersch and Groeningen; the camera feels closer to its protagonists and the mountainous meadows they run through, emphasizing the child actors' diminutive stature in contrast to the massive mountains. Young Bruno and Pietro, played by Francesco Palombelli and Andrea Palma, respectively, bring a gentle innocence to their performances that is essential to the plot of The Eight Mountains.
The camera seems to be progressively zooming out as Pietro and Bruno get older, setting them against wide, barren landscapes to replicate the sense of gradual isolation that develops with time. Nearly 20 years pass before the pair is reunited after being torn apart by events beyond their control. It seems appropriate that what brings them back together is also what tore them apart. The Eight Mountains is careful in its portrayal of friendship and sympathetic in the way it follows Pietro and Bruno as they rediscover each other (and themselves), thus there is little room for melodrama in this situation.
That procedure is difficult. The Eight Mountains is a meticulous movie that does not spare the viewer the monotony of climbing a mountain or erecting a stone house one layer at a time. The way it views connections is similar. The calm moments in Pietro and Bruno's friendship would not seem all that significant if the film did not acknowledge them. The film's length will undoubtedly contribute to some viewers finding this section boring, but The Eight Mountains wouldn't penetrate viewers' minds in the way that it does if it didn't have the time. It's a movie that sneaks up on you, revealing depths to friendships and other close relationships that you might not otherwise be able to unpack if you didn't have the time.
The entire phrase, when taken literally, appears to symbolize both Pietro and Bruno: "The future is the water that pours down from above, bringing risks and surprises. The mountains hold the key to the future while the valley holds the history. Pietro stays in the water for a while, allowing the future to wash over him. Bruno, on the other hand, moves forward by swimming upstream and against the tide. Additionally, he spends the majority of The Eight Mountains literally on the mountain that meant the most to Pietro's father Giovanni. Pietro finally catches up with him, but it takes a long, and that's what makes The Eight Mountains, and the lives it looks at across three decades, so heartbreaking. The Eight Mountains lacks the forward propulsion that many people are accustomed to in a story of this kind, which is counterintuitive, but if you let it wash over you like the river of the past, it can be a very satisfying experience.
