Based on the novel by Paolo Cognetti, “The Eight Mountains”, a 2022 Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize winner, is the story of a friendship. Of children becoming men who try to erase the footprints of their fathers, but who, through the twists and turns they take, always end up returning home. Pietro (Luca Marinelli) is a boy from Turin. Bruno (Alessandro Borghi) is the last child of a forgotten Italian mountain village of Grana. Over the years Bruno remains faithful to his mountain, while Pietro is the one who comes and goes. Their encounters introduce them to love and loss, reminding them of their origins, letting their destinies unfold, as Pietro and Bruno discover what it means to be true friends for life.
Bruno and Pietro, both 12, meet in Grana. Bruno is living with his aunt and uncle in Grana while Pietro is the only child of a teacher and engineer from Turin who rent a summer residence in Grana in the mountains of Valle D’ Aosta in Italy so well captured by cinematographer Ruben Impens. They form a friendship that spans the entire film however not in a linear fashion.
As the boys mature both drift apart from their fathers yet at points they are exactly like their fathers.
The intellectual matrix of “The Eight Mountains” is based upon a man who approached Pietro on his trip to Nepal explaining that eight mountains and oceans formed the world with Mount Sumera in the middle with a question who has learnt more. The man that has travelled the eight mountains and eight oceans or who has climbed Mount Sumera. As a viewer you’ll make that decision!
One of the men loses himself in tragic fashion and the other finds himself after years of wandering through life. One of the men finds the father he drifted from although it is too late to tell his deceased father that he never should have shunned him. There may also be a question of Italy losing itself in a financial crisis and a traditional way of life.
The mountains surrounding Grana are the immovable centre of the film. Human relationships are the fluidity.
A memorable epic.
This Italian, French and Belgian film is 147 minutes in length and opened in Canada on May 19th. It is in Italian with either English or French subtitles. It is directed by Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch.
RKS 2023 Film Rating 92/100.
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