The Eight Mountains

Saw this at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival

"The Eight Mountains" is a story about two young Italian boys spend their childhoods together in a secluded alpine village roaming the surrounding peaks and valleys before their paths diverge. Felix van Groeningen is a filmmaker I have seen previously and I haven't been too big with his works as his works were mainly a bit cheesy for my taste. This being a collaborated project with Charlotte Vandermeersch, this took a different shift.

The film has extremely beautiful camerawork, visual presentation, and sound designs as the film does a pretty good job showing the beautiful landscapes of Italy and the environment. The countryside presentation remained me of aspects from "Brokeback Mountain" or any films from Terrence Malick. The costumes and visual aspects of the film were the selling points of this film. With the characters explored, the film does explore themes of friendship, loss and social conflicts between society and while the film does have good moments, the themes felt a little dull as they felt unevenly explored. Many of the performances from the cast members were pretty good. Even the child actors were really good as well.

However, I wasn't able to fully connect with this film as I was hoping for. There are many great elements that could have been better like some of the characters relationships and conflicts could have been explored a little more and the pacing could have been improved as it did drag a little. Some dialogue moments were really bad. Overall, this isn't a bad film and there are a lot to appreciate, but it was a bit underwhelming since this was one of my anticipated films from Sundance.

Rating: B-

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.

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.

I was completely seduced from start to finish by the atmosphere, by the tenderness and the love that emerges from the fantastic story of this friendship.

The images are sublime and authentic. We can very well feel the influences of Sean Penn's "Into The Wild" in this film.

The music is also superb. I recommend to all movie buffs. For this me, this movie has it all.

The images of nature are breathtaking and remind us of the difficulties of living in the mountains. This film exudes authenticity and true relationships between humans.

The Italian actors are incredibly accurate.

It reminded me of the 70's.

I warmly recommend.

This is a very special film about a lifelong friendship between Bruno (Alessandro Borghi) and Pietro (Luca Marinelli). Bruno was born and raised in the mountain, while Pietro learned to love the mountain through his father (Filippo Timi) but he is from the big city, Turin.

Felix Groeningen and are people from flatlands, but sincerely fascinated by the book and learned to love high mountain. This is a film about this friendship, often silent and distant, but very deep ubreakable. It's also a film about the few Europeans who still love places of great beauty but distant from social interaction and the comfort of technology. As at one point Bruno says he is good at one thing: to live alone on the mountain. This is a quality that is more and more rare and the directors have made a great film.