The Eight Mountains

Director: Felix van Groningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch.
Starring: Luca Marinelli,  Alessandro Borghi, Elena Lietti, Filippo Timi
Distributor: Italian Film Festival
Runtime: 147 mins. Reviewed in Sep 2023
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Coarse language

This is a drama about friendship. It is also a drama about the different paths that life takes. While the setting is the Italian Alps, filmed spectacularly in the mountains, the valleys, the lakes, in the variety of seasons, the title does not just simply refer to these locations. Rather, there is a drawing, echoes of Eastern mysticism, a circle, lines of division across the circle forming different sectors, but a central point, a peak. The explanation is that one can go to the centre, the peak, remain there or, rather, one can travel about the different sectors, the eight mountains. Which is the template, so to speak, for the two characters in this film. They are Pietro and Bruno.

The two meet as 11-year-old boys. Pietro comes from Turin with his parents for the summer holidays in the Alps, Bruno is a boy at home in the mountains. They share a number of adventures during the holidays. This childhood section of the film is very engaging.

Pietro narrates the film, and he reveals to us that several years pass and the two teenagers paths cross, Pietro recognising Bruno coming into a bar, Bruno nodding but then leaving with his fellow workers. And then, with some dismay, Pietro reveals that they did not see each other for 15 years. In the meantime, Pietro has clashed severely with his father.

It is Bruno who makes the move after the 15 years, listening to Pietro, then revealing the Bruno has been in touch with Pietro’s father over the years and had received a bequest from him, asking him to build a house high in the mountains. The invitation is for Pietro to work with him.

This gives Bruno a sense of direction, handling his bricklaying skills, reminding him of his love for the mountains, is deciding to stay, cattle, milking, cheesemaking, eventually marrying one of Pietro’s friends, a daughter, prosperity, financial difficulties . . .

While Pietro values connecting with Bruno and also the achievement of building the house, his life in Turin seems to have little value. Bruno reminds him he once thought to be a writer and Pietro travels, visiting and settling in Nepal, becoming in touch a deeper sense of himself and his abilities, writing and publishing.

And so it goes over the years, Pietro in Nepal establishing a life there, returning to Italy and bonding with Bruno and his family, with his mother.

This is a film of a long-time friendship, bonding, sharing, absences, encouragement, achievement, failures, sadness. Bruno has stayed at the centre in his mountain while Pietro has travelled and experience the wider range of the eight mountains.