The Eight Mountains

Released 2022. Directors: Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch

TWO YOUNG BOYS, PIETRO AND BRUNO, first meet in a remote village high in the Italian Alps. Pietro’s family have come from the city to spend the summer and hired accommodation from Bruno’s uncle. The boys quickly become friends and every summer they meet again, running wild in the meadows, climbing hills, moving rocks and logs, tending to livestock, splashing in the stream, doing what children do.

The Eight Mountains (Le Otto Montagne in its Italian title) is a movie about an abiding friendship. Although the boys drifted apart in their teens, years later they reconnect in adulthood when Pietro returns and helps his old friend rebuild a ramshackle cabin. The two men chop wood, lug machinery, wield power tools and use brute strength to turn a ravaged pile of stones and timber into a liveable, functional home.

For the rest of their lives, every summer the two friends would meet here in the cabin they built together, even when their lives have gone in very different directions. Bruno marries Lara, a friend of Pietro, and has a child. Pietro spends much of his time in Nepal, having found a new spiritual purpose in his middle age.

Played by Cristiano Sassella and Lupo Barbiero as kids and Francesco Palombelli and Andrea Palma as adults, Bruno and Pietro grow from scrawny boys to brooding bearded mountain men. The defining aspects of their individual lives are the times they spend together and the friendship that seems carved into the landscape of their formative years.

Speaking of which, the Alps provides the movie with a spectacular backdrop which cinematographer Ruben Impens turns into stunning views. Mountain paths lead to peaks that rise above clouds, blinding glaciers and snow fields gleam under crystalline blue sky, steep slopes slide into deep valleys. The meadows and the mountains change colours and temperaments across the seasons and with each passing year, Bruno feels more entrenched in the rugged land of his upbringing. His connection to this place is deep and unbreakable. He was born here, and he will die here. Pietro, on the other hand, never really belongs anywhere. The constant feeling of displacement turns him into a nomad.

In the long years of estrangement between Pietro and his dad over a disagreement over Pietro's career choice, Bruno fills the space like a surrogate son whenever Pietro's dad returns to the village. So in a way the reunion of the two friends is also that of two brothers working out a family legacy.

The two men are different in ways but they share a bond forged by their times in the mountains that they understand each other like no one else can. Each of them sees a little of what he wants in the other person. Both of them find a measure of happiness and contentment in their choices in their pursuit of stability and adventure. Bruno settles down with a wife, a child and a small dairy business. Pietro ends up in Nepal, still surrounded by mountains, which seem to possess a power to compel him.

The Eight Mountains is an elegiac depiction of a deep connection from childhood to death. Movies about lifelong friendships between men are rare, a theme normally reserved for women. Men don't talk about feelings, they do stuff. Bruno and Pietro don't talk much at times. When they meet again after years apart, hardly a few meaningful words are exchanged as they simply get down to business and get on with what they're there to do. Their reticence belies their profound connection as their friendship endures beyond words and expressions of emotions.

It's also about two brothers. One stays and carries on with history and tradition. One leaves and explores new directions. Each of them following his heart to find a place where he feels he belongs.

Just when Pietro finds his purpose, Bruno loses his in a tragic turn of events but the mountains are not done with the men. Pietro retraces his dad's trekking from all those years ago and discovers that his estranged dad, though he had never let on, was just like him. He had his dreams but surrendered them to expectations and obligations when he chose to become a husband and father because that's what men are expected to do.

The movie doesn't prescribe a right-or-wrong viewpoint. What it prompts is the idea that when you find yourself at a crossroads, you alone decide on what you stand to gain or lose when you choose to stay or leave. And how fortunate it is if you have someone who remains a constant in your life of flux, one person who understands you because he knows the child inside.

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