The Eight Mountains

Cert - 12, Run-time - 2 hours 27 minutes, Directors - Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch.

Over multiple decades of growing up separately, childhood friends Pietro (Luca Marinelli) and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi) keep returning to the peace of the Italian alps.

In February I praised Marcel The Shell With Shoes On for its wholesomeness and tenderness. With a more real-world footing, The Eight Mountains depicts a tender, decade-spanning friendship between childhood friends Pietro (Luca Marinelli) and Bruno (Alessando Borghi). Growing up in the city and countryside respectively the pair reunite each summer to roam the Italian alps, right where Bruno lives; doing so well into adulthood.

There’s a sense of peace and calm in the silences between the pair. Not quiet used to emphasise what has come beforehand or make a point. Silence. They’re happy enough in each other’s company, assisted by the stunning backdrops which are so integral to the film and the characters, that sometimes nothing needs to be said.

An adult Pietro narrates the film’s events. The box-like aspect ratio provides the feeling of someone looking back at old polaroids, each one continuing the story of developing moments within the lives of the central friends. Emphasised by the frequent use of songs by Daniel Norgren; acting as the one nostalgic record in the holiday cottage where the narrator used to stay with his family each summer.

Both figures grow tense and distant relationships with the father-figures in their lives - eventually leading to a key emotional sequence in the later stages of the film - yet, they have a close bond with each other. They may change as they grow up (in a natural, believeable way) but despite time jumps we know they’re the same people thanks to their relationship.

After having not seen each other for years they plan to rebuild a house together on the mountain. “This is our summer house, where we’ll see each other every year” Pietro says, as if insisting a promise and almost demanding one back from his friend. In a similar vein you genuinely believe him when he assures over the phone “I’ll be on my way as fast as I can”.

At two-and-a-half hours you never question the film’s run-time or where it’s going. The pacing, like the central friendship, is relaxed and guides you along with ease as you’re given time to drink in both the scenery (the natural environment is truly amazing to look at) and the places we see the core pair go in their lives. Each with their hopes and wants for where life will take them, although occasionally questioning their course and themselves, adding to the natural progression of life which the narrative charts.

You stay with it due to how much you buy into the care and love Bruno and Pietro have for each other. The silence and safety of the alps is pure silence marking a place of true escape, yet one with lingering confrontations in the past. There are various male relationships on display, yet the core focus is that of a calm, gentle male friendship guiding the film and making for moments of genuine profundity throughout.

Jamie Skinner, Four stars ****