Their friendship, whatever the distance between the two men, remains intimate, bound by their deep understanding of each other. Regardless, I’d be neglecting my reviewing duties if I didn’t remark on the exquisite cinematography, with the film set primarily in the Alps, and later Nepal.Īs we follow Pietro and Bruno’s stories’ through their 30s, they go through periods of being far apart while Pietro travels, and close together, back in their built summer house annually. That we in the big city should reconsider how we live with nature to co-exist alongside it, or think of ourselves as part of it, rather than spectate it from afar as voyeurs. The observation by country-man Bruno that only city folk regard trees, meadows or mountains as ‘nature’ and miraculous, rather than as practical things to interact with, was one that felt particularly impactful, and targeted to audiences in the likes of metropolitan Amsterdam. Though their backgrounds are different – urban versus rural, richer versus poorer – their life paths are shaped and deeply impacted by their relationships with nature. It is here that Pietro and Bruno, in their shared journey of moving on from Giovanni, and their pursuit of a peaceful life, deepen their friendship once more. The two men honour Giovanni by building a house together, a promise Bruno had made to his father figure. Pietro, who had been long-estranged from his father by that point, learns only then of how close his father had become with Bruno. Only when Pietro’s father Giovanni (Filippo Timi) dies in their early 30s do the two men reunite. After charting their close friendship, with Bruno becoming close to Pietro’s family, the two become separated through their teens and twenties.

We first meet Pietro (Luca Marinelli), a relatively privileged boy from Turin on holiday at his summer home in the Alps, and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), a local country boy with a dysfunctional family background, both aged 12.

Le otto montagne (as the film is originally known – or De acht bergen in Dutch), tells the story of two men, who reconnect twenty years after a childhood friendship. Perhaps those at Cannes Festival last year felt that same resonance when they awarded the film the Jury Prize, a well-deserved accolade for this two-and-a-half-hour drama by directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch. The film seemed more like a product of the pandemic, tackling themes of loneliness, self-discovery and reconnecting with ‘what truly matters’, something many felt over the last couple years. I was surprised to discover that the recently released The Eight Mountains is an adaptation of a novel, written in 2016 by Paolo Cognetti.

Le otto montagne english