Directed by Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch
Starring Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi, Lupo Barbiero, Cristiano Sassella, Filippo Timi, Elena Lietti, and Elisabetta Mazzullo

When summer holidays companionship becomes a special and lifelong bond.
When lifelong silence says more than words.

This lengthy Italian drama might be considered a foreign film for most people born and raised in the country I call home, but one of the two husband and wife directing team certainly isn’t foreign to us.
Felix van Groeningen previously directed the brilliant but heavy Oscar-nominated drama, The Broken Circle Breakdown, and more notably, the heart-breaking and excellent Beautiful Boy, starring Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell. Together with his wife, Charlotte Vandermeersch, he adds a third quality drama to his CV with the understatedly emotionally complex The Eight Mountains.

The premise is a simple one. In 1984, two 11 going on 12-year-old boys, Pietro and Bruno, strike an unshakeable bond while on vacation in the Italian Alps during summer holidays. Courtesy of an adult Pietro’s retrospective narration to open the film, we know from the get-go that the two men have maintained a friendship over the decades in some way, shape or form. The Eight Mountains, based on the book of the same name and a Jury Prize Winner at Cannes, chronicles that in between in a ponderous and free from judgement manner.

During the screening of this film I attended for the ST. ALi Italian Film Festival here in Australia, it dawned on me that while not a lot is happening over the two and a half hours passing by, I found myself transfixed in some way to something without knowing what that something was. Sure, I guess spending close to a few hours being transported to the stunning Italian Alps where little happens sounds idyllic in itself. But it wasn’t until later in the film and thereafter that the reality of it struck like whiplash. Irrespective of which way you look at it, The Eight Mountains is a deeply nuanced film whose depiction of an everlasting and loyal friendship, and one of its protagonist’s ode to it, is as towering as the peaks that surround the two friends. There is an enduring silence maintained by the two men. The type of silence that is comfortable between friends yet also says more than words (cue my opening to this review). What dialogue that could or even needs to fill that silence remains entirely up to viewer interpretation, as you’d expect. When you take into consideration what we know about both men from their childhood and weigh up the ramifications these have on them as adolescents and adults (especially for Bruno), more than one of those interpretations to be gleaned will reveal a certain yet unexpected power underpinning the film. The result is most certainly touching and earns plenty of appreciation.

The Eight Mountains is showing in selected cinemas across Australia as part of the ST. ALi Italian Film Festival from 19th September – 25th October.

Moviedoc thanks Palace, ST. ALi Film Festival and Miranda Brown Publicity for the invite to the screening of this film.

Review by Leigh for Moviedoc

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