Pietro (Lupo Barbiero) joins his mother, Francesca (Elena Lietti), in Grana, a small town in the Italian Alps, as he does every summer.  His father, Giovani (Filippo Timi), joins when he can but otherwise spends most of his time at work.  Pietro becomes fast friends with Bruno (Cristiano Sassella), the only other boy in the small town, and the two become almost like brothers, so much so that he is offered to join Pietro and the family in Turin so that he can get an education.  It is not to be, however, as Bruno is called away to work on the dairy farm with his uncle, and eventually Pietro embarks on his own journey, but years later the two meet again and their friendship picks up immediately where it left off as they navigate the new trials of their adult lives. 

Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch direct their adaptation of Paolo Cognetti’s novel, The Eight Mountains, which examines a decades-long friendship through the highs and lows of life.  The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022 where it won the Jury Prize, tying with Jerzy Skolimowski’ Eo, and both titles were picked up by Janus Films who gave them limited theatrical runs before issuing them as part of their Janus Contemporaries line of home media.  Running 147 minutes, the film paints a full picture of male friendship set against the majestic Italian Alps, and while its free-flowing nature makes it hard to summarize the plot of the film, the character work initially laid by Barbiero and Sassella, and later expanded upon by Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi who portray Pietro and Bruno as adults for the majority of the film, makes for a captivating experience all the same. 

The film opens with the two boys, inseparable, as they play in the fields before Bruno is called by his mother to tend to the cows or other chores.  It is a friendship sparked by convenience being the only two children in the village that suffered a mass exodus when a new road was put in.  The road was supposed to bring people into the town, instead, it just made it easier to leave and the few faithful remaining have found themselves all but abandoned completely.  While it is natural that the two boys gravitate toward each other, The Eight Mountains also spends considerable time in this opening gambit – narrated by the older Pietro – highlighting the differences between the city mouse and the country mouse.  It does this in a variety of ways, most often by showing Bruno at work, but most clearly when Giovani shows up and takes the boys on a hike up a mountain.  In this important scene, Pietro cannot reach the peak due to altitude sickness, so they must return home.  The film is slowly asking the question of what does it mean to be a man, a question that will later seem to be answered when the boys are adults and Bruno has a wife and kids that help out on their farm whereas Pietro spends aimless winters in Nepal, never quite finding to confidence to solidify things with Asmi (Surakshya Panta) there. 

Before they are grown, the film spends a brief bit of time with the two boys as adolescents, the go-with-the-flow Pietro played by Andrea Palma who spends his time milling about the town with his friends and hanging at bars, and Francesco Palombelli who portrays Bruno, now working long days in construction.  The two, we understand, have fallen out of touch, but across the bar, Pietro sees Bruno enter with his work crew.  Ultimately, he does nothing.  It is not time yet. And there is a twinge of shame for having fallen out of touch. 

It is not until Pietro’s father passes, another 15 or so years after the “encounter” at the bar, that he returns to Grana and reunites with Bruno, both now bearded men instead of soft boys. It is a tentative reunion before the two men begin to feel inseparable again, and they bond over a parcel of land left behind by Pietro’s father to Bruno where they were going to rebuild a cabin in the mountains together. As a way to honor Giovani’s legacy, the two men resolve to build the home together for them to share in the summer. It is a grieving process that through loss brings new life, specifically a newfound love of the land by Pietro. With the friendship reignited and the narrative having a clear goal in place, The Eight Mountains begins to really take form and soar as a tender film examining the power of friendship in a unique and unconventional way.  

The premise may sound twee, like something out of an inspirational film where tragedy exists as a springboard for faith and the derailment of life through monumental loss acts as some kind of cruel test of resolve, but the film has so much more nuance to it than that and while it ultimately has an eye on the future, The Eight Mountains is not about overlooking the past. The two lead performances coupled with Ruben Impens’ cinematography that soaks in the gorgeous landscape make this a much more profound experience without being overbearing in its intention to get us to appreciate all that makes up the world around us; what is, what was, and what will become. Impens gives definition to the trees, rivers, grasses, and mountains so that it does not become one blurred conglomerate that is simply summed up and written off as “nature.” The colors are cold, but beautiful, highlighted in the summer sunlight and emboldened against the winter snows, but with the cabin completed and some 80 minutes of runtime left, what is The Eight Mountains actually working towards? It is a methodological process, seen in how Pietro cares for the small sapling at the edge of their property. The questions asked by the film must be pondered and answers will only begin to show themselves after the passing of time. The onus then is on us to keep fostering that spirit of discovery both outwardly of the world around us and inwardly on what it means to be true to ourselves. It is a process that cannot be rushed in the same way the growing of a tree cannot be rushed; it must be cared for and tended to.

Late in the film, Pietro finally sheds some light on the metaphor from which the film and the novel gain their title. Legend says that the world is comprised of eight mountains and eight oceans with the tallest mountain in the center. Some people spend their lives wandering across the peaks, while others focus their efforts on the single peak at the center. Who is right? Who is wrong? The film is not looking to cast judgment on either side. Pietro is more worldly than Bruno, spending his winters in Nepal, but this semi-nomadic lifestyle has left him with almost none of the traditional milestones and achievements to show for it. He is unmarried, childless, and his job has less tangible output than Bruno’s. Sure, he has published a book, but the film is not interested in the physical nature of the pages, it treats Pietro more as an avatar of knowledge, and it asks us to consider if knowledge alone can put food on the table or wood on the hearth. Meanwhile, Bruno, despite having scaled the surrounding mountains in his youth with Giovani, we understand has never left the small town of Grana, yet he is married with children and works on a dairy farm – which he owns – producing cheeses. Neither man seems to fully appreciate what they have as they look at the other and see reflections of their own regret. 

The Eight Mountains despite its open and flowing nature, is surprisingly obtuse. It is a film that asks more questions of the audience than it provides answers, not even in a narrative sense but in a philosophical sense. As a story, very little happens across its runtime that spans, essentially, two lifetimes, yet it does not feel empty. There is no wrong way to approach this life so long as it is well lived with intention, and because both Pietro and Bruno live full lives, whether they themselves realize that or not, the film does not have much work to do in proving its thesis. In that way, it can be seen as almost aimless in its construction which results in a listless and frustrating viewing experience. Audiences are held attentive, however, because of the careful performances from Marinelli and Borghi as well as the thoughtful construction that promises a revelation. Concluding with the melting frost of a new spring, The Eight Mountains is one of the more puzzling films of the year, not because of some central mystery that needs solving, but because it asks audiences to account for every step they have taken in life to this moment, and further, it asks us if we know where we are going.