Las ocho montañas

It took me some weeks to properly put my thoughts about this movie into words. I haven't read the book, although I am definitely planning to. For what I've heard, the movie is mostly true to the original story by Paola Cognetti.

The movie was filmed and produced during the Covid-pandemic. Felix Van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch and the film crew stayed near the mountains during the shoot. This embodies in a way the self-sought isolation in the mountains of one of the main characters Bruno.

The music nicely complements the documentary-like, authentic images of the breath-taking nature - a term clearly only used by city people.

This is not your average "wanderlust" movie. Le Otto Montagne is about a difficult father-son relationship which could have been totally different if they knew each other at different times. It is a movie about the quest to finding yourself which everyone strays or should stray by themselves. Most of all, it is about the strong relationship based on the mutual love for the mountains between two life-long friends, who do not have to hear or see each other every week or month to maintain it. A relationship strong enough to easily overcome disputes, misfortunes and most importantly time is something rare and special and something I wish for everybody.

I saw the movie at the end of 2022 and it easily became my top movie of that year. 10/10.

Felix Van Groeningen, the director of The Eight Mountains, was born and raised in an area that's as flat as a pancake. I know, because I live there. There are no mountains in Flanders.

Maybe it takes a flatlander like Van Groeningen to really appreciate the beauty of mountains. His film starts with magnificent images of the Italian Alps, the area where The Eight Mountains takes place. In fact, the whole movie seems to be an ode to the beauty of the mountains. The vistas from the highest summits and the calm of a mountain lake: the images are magnificent.

And so is the story of the two friends, who both love those mountains. As a child, city dweller Pietro befriends Bruno, who lives in a small mountain village. Their friendship continues when they are adults. The film shows how they both try to shape their lives, each in their own way. Both are drawn to the mountains, but in different ways.

Van Groeningen, together with his wife Charlotte Vandermeersch, has made a beautiful and poetic movie about the friendship between Bruno and Pietro. The two men don't show their emotions easily, and the film doesn't aim for easy effects either. In an understated, subtle way, the movie shows how their lives divert, but remain connected through their mutual love for the mountains. It's well directed, well acted and beautifully filmed. This film will find a natural audience: the readers of Paolo Cognetti's bestseller it's based on. But those who haven't read the book might also be fascinated by the friendship between Pietro and Bruno.

Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch succeeded magnificently in bringing the epic tale of Paolo Cognetti about relationships between people and people and mountains to the big screen.

With Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi the main characters were brought alive by probably two of the biggest talents in acting Italy has to offer at the moment.

The mountain scenery is simply stunning and the stuff that every mountain enthusiast's dreams are made of. However, you want to keep your eyes wide open for this picture. Neither flashy nor slow, this movie takes the time to tell a story, without it getting tedious at any point. It gives you the space to take it all in and it allows one's emotions to come into their own.

As children (during summer holidays in the Italian Alps) two young boys become acquainted, with a purity and innocence that's well painted, bonding as brothers in a way, having great fun the days they play, quite different backgrounds, but that affect, is far from tainted. As they get older their own journeys change direction, until one loses a father, then reconnection, and a project is established, to realise the one that's passed wish, and from the rubble and old wood, there's introspection. As time passes they move on to different glades, one travels, one a family does raise, but like the land with all those highs, there are some lows that can capsize, as life can be transformed, by where you graze.

This movie is beautiful. It's about life, childhood, living the life, death, existential crisis and friendship. It's a slow burner but never boring - on the contrary - you want to know the whole story about the two main characters and how they end up in life.

The scenery is stunning - from the alps to the Himalayas.

This is not pure entertainment- more like reading a book with pure wisdom and plenty of life experience. I suspect the story will stay with me for days or weeks. The acting is top notch.

However, this is the very opposite to the pure entertaining Hollywood movie, and is maybe not optimal for a Friday night after a long workweek.