X
- 2023
- Not Rated
- Janus Films
- 2 h 27 m
- 2023
- Not Rated
- Janus Films
- 2 h 27 m
Summary The Eight Mountains is the story of a friendship. Of children becoming men who try to erase the footprints of their fathers, but who, through the twists and turns they take, always end up returning home. Pietro is a boy from the city, Bruno is the last child of a forgotten mountain village. Over the years Bruno remains faithful to his mo...
Directed By: Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch
- 2023
- Not Rated
- Janus Films
- 2 h 27 m
- 2023
- Not Rated
- Janus Films
- 2 h 27 m
The Eight Mountains
78
7.2
Where to Watch
Summary The Eight Mountains is the story of a friendship. Of children becoming men who try to erase the footprints of their fathers, but who, through the twists and turns they take, always end up returning home. Pietro is a boy from the city, Bruno is the last child of a forgotten mountain village. Over the years Bruno remains faithful to his mo...
Directed By: Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 28 Critic Reviews
78
82% Positive
23 Reviews
23 Reviews
18% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 28 Critic Reviews
78
82% Positive
23 Reviews
23 Reviews
18% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Its social reality – that of the emptying and decline of rural regions in Italy – is contemporary and vital, but there is something deeper and simpler at play here. In that simplicity, with its notes played purely, there is no need of distortion or abstraction to justify itself.
The spiritual dimension of Pietro and Bruno’s bond has its appeal, and one of the movie’s pleasures is that it takes male friendship seriously. There’s an expressly erotic dimension to the men’s love for each other, as can be the case with intimate relationships, though not an explicitly carnal one.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 User Ratings
7.2
72% Positive
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
22% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
6% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 User Ratings
7.2
72% Positive
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
22% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
6% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
Here's a film that takes the time to show the events that shape people, and the result of their choises. We're talking epic, as in that other movie where a person tries to go for a alternative lifestyle, Into The Wild. And wild it gets, the mountains in winter are no flowery meadow. And that atmosphere is perfectly captured by Swedish singer songwriter and formerly known Blues artist Daniel Norgren. Most songs are from the 2015 album 'Alabursy' I think. Songs like 'Everything You Know Melts Away Like Snow' or 'Why May I Not Go Out And Climb The Trees?' give my life meaning! And movies like this are a refuge against awful feasts of useless beastliness and gruesome bloodlust like in Evil Dead Rise. Just this flash of light
In the endless night
And it's done (from 'As Long As We Last')
Its good that every now and again a movie shows a life in fast forward; living might seem endless certain days, but it passes far to fast, and like in the cinema there is no rewind button. Also starring: the Italian Alps.
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Just as the film’s near-sole setting — a remote mountain cabin beneath the peaks of northwestern Italy — beckons Pietro (Luca Marinelli) and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi) throughout their lives, the intoxicating atmosphere of The Eight Mountains is a cherished retreat I’m already eager to revisit.
Much like climbing a mountain, the two-and-a-half-hour runtime may occasionally feel arduous, but the emotional release is worth it once you reach the peak.
The Eight Mountains is a sentimental ode to those singular friendships we make in our lives, the kind that can’t be severed by any amount of distance, physical or temporal. Even when there’s so much left unsaid, it’s the comfort they find in each other that resonates most.
This beautifully shot drama transforms an Italian summer of fraternal love into a delicate, decades-spanning exploration of friendship. It’s overlong, and overfamiliar, but remains a nuanced dual character study.
The filmmakers’ self-imposition of a pristinely clean aesthetic results in the kind of emptied, tranquillized, minutely calibrated experience that’s no less a matter of fan service than the latest installment of comic-book I.P., and offers no more meaningful a view of life.
Visually stunning! If you didn't care for the story, (which I did, immensely), you still can't fault the film for its cinematography. Like I said, though, it's the story that got me. It's subtle and the main two actors give nuanced performances that still resonate in the glorious Alps. One of the best movies about platonic love and masculinity I've seen in a long time. Conjured up Breaking Away for me, in a way, with a little Razor's Edge vibes too boot.
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Amistades que necesitan pocas palabras, cuando el vínculo creado por los años compartidos resuena en cada mirada. Un film hermoso estéticamente, con una luz espectacular, la cinematografia es muy interesante. Y el escenario los Alpes Suizos !
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A very simple story/movie. Not much to it. I didn’t feel that it was worth my time.
Report
Considering the importance of friendship in our lives, it’s somewhat surprising that there aren’t more movies devoted to this subject. But perhaps that’s because it’s difficult to make truly engaging films that effectively address this topic. Such is the case with this would-be grand sweeping epic set against the mountain landscapes of Italy and Nepal. In this tale of life-long friendship and self-discovery, directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch attempt to examine these issues through the complex relationship of two boyhood chums (Luca Martinelli, Alessandro Borghi) over the course of four subsequent decades. Unfortunately, the film seeks to cover so much ground (and lacks the kind of clarity required to do so) that much of the narrative seems muddled, meandering and just plain dull. The filmmakers try to paper over this central shortcoming with its visually stunning cinematography, which is so impressive in itself that it almost makes the picture worth watching. However, given the overall lack of focus, snail-like pacing and inclusion of too much easily removed extraneous material, the visuals are not enough to overcome a script that’s not as profound as it likes to think it is. Moreover, the chemistry between the two protagonists is often unconvincing and unclear as to what the true nature of their connection is supposed to be, making it hard to believe that they’re genuinely the good friends that the directors are attempting to claim they are (or, strangely enough at times, that they’re perhaps more than just the friends that they allegedly are). In the picture’s defense, it improves somewhat the further one gets into the story, but so much narrative clutter has preceded this that it’s difficult to muster much enthusiasm for how events play out. And, despite a supposedly uplifting message, this offering has a profound level of sadness attached to it that the filmmakers try to deflect with a sense of overblown phony nobility that, even if widely held, fails to muster the empathy it tries to generate with audience members. Friendship is indeed something that deserves wider attention in the cinematic landscape, but this release is not the way to go about it.
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Production Company
Wildside,
Rufus,
Menuetto Film,
Pyramide Productions,
Vision Distribution,
Elastic Film,
Sky,
Canal+,
Ciné+,
Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds,
Screen Flanders,
Film Commission Regione Valle d'Aosta
Release Date Apr 28, 2023
Duration 2 h 27 m
Rating Not Rated
Genres
Awards
David di Donatello Awards
• 4 Wins & 14 Nominations
Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
Valladolid International Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
