CThe films that simply tell a story and others that manage to make you feel a place, once, a bond. The eight Montagnand, written and directed by Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandarmeerschundoubtedly belongs to the second category. Taken from the homonymous homonymous novel by Paolo Cognetti (2017 Strega Prize), the film – which will be broadcast tonight on TV8 – It is the delicate and poignant portrait of a male friendship lived between silences, looks and concrete gestures, dug in the alpine landscape and in the inexorable passing of time.
The eight mountainsthe plot
Pietro and Bruno meet as children in a small village in the Aosta Valley. Pietro (Lupo Barbiero as a young man, Luca Marinelli as an adult) is a city boy, who grew up in a Turin bourgeois family, while Bruno (Cristiano Sassella and then Alessandro Borghi) is the last child left in a mountain village. Their link was born spontaneously, between pastures and paths, and consolidates over the years, despite the different roads that the two take. Pietro travels, explores the world, while Bruno remains faithful to the mountain, building his life between rocks and snow, between dreams of self -sufficiency and harsh economic realities.
That told in the film is a friendship that challenges time and distance, a relationship made of returns rather than staying. It is not just a personal link, but a comparison between two visions of life: On the one hand the idea of the mountain as a refuge, on the other as a prison. And precisely this contrast feeds the narrative, leading the protagonists to share a symbolic and concrete choice: the construction of a hut, a meeting place and memory.
Alessandro Borghi and Luca Marinelli. (Press Office)
The review
Van Groeningen and Vandarmeersch make a strong and counter -current aesthetic choice: They turn in 4: 3 format, closing the horizon and forcing the viewer’s gaze to focus on the characters rather than on the grandeur of the landscape. A decision that goes against The conventions of the films set in the mountains, where aerial filming and long fields dominate to enhance the immensity of nature. Here, however, the emphasis is placed on men, their faces, their emotions.
The eight mountains It is a film that speaks of choices and crossed destinies, of paternal legacy and the tension between belonging and escape. A film that leaves a mark, like a trace in the snow, because it tells a universal feeling with sincerity and delicacy. To make the visual experience even more intense is Daniel Norgren’s soundtrack, with folk and melancholy songs accompanying the images without ever overlooking them.
The cast, Alessandro Borghi and Luca Marinelli
The success of The eight mountains It also passes through the extraordinary tests of Alessandro Borghi and Luca Marinellitwo actors who have been able to impose themselves as the most representative faces of their generation in the last ten years. Villages, After the exploit with Not be bad (2015)built a varied and courageous career, alternating roles of great impact as in the exciting and painful On my skin (where he plays Stefano Cucchi) and in the recent battlefield, to international productions (Suburra, Supersex).
Alessandro Borghi. (Press Office)
Marinelli, for his part, has always maintained a more autoorial profile, going from intense and memorable roles such as Martin Eden (with whom he won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival) and remember?, To Hollywood experiences like The Old Guard. The two find themselves here after not being bad, giving life to a virile but deeply emotional friendship, far from stereotypes. Their alchemy is palpable, made of small gestures, shared silences, jokes exchanged with a perfect understanding.
Why see (or review) The eight mountains
Tonight on TV8 it will be the perfect opportunity to let himself be carried away in the world of Pietro and Bruno, Between snowy valleys and friendships that resist the passage of time. This is one of those films that deserve to be discovered calmly. To be savored also in their slowness. If you haven’t seen yet The eight mountainstonight is the perfect opportunity to let yourself be transported to a story that speaks of friendship, Roots and life choices with rare and precious delicacy. If, on the other hand, you’ve already seen him at the cinema, seeing him again on television can give new shades: the film by Van Groeningen and Vandarmeersch It is full of details that emerge fully only over time, just like the mountains that inspire it.
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