The ST. ALi Italian Film Festival returns to Perth from 28th September to 25th October, and one of the best of the bunch is The Eight Mountains (Le otto montagne), a strikingly beautiful and melancholy story of two friends in rural Italy over a period of 24 years. 

Adapted from the Paolo Cognetti book by the same name, Belgian directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch have created a true epic set across the beautiful Italian Alps. The film’s focus is the friendship between characters Pietro (Luca Marinelli) and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), who first meet as children in the tiny country town of Grana. Their blossoming friendship begins conflicting with the ideals of both of their families; and their time together each summer ends abruptly before they reconnect years later.

The film’s strong themes of tradition, meaning, and unspoken feelings all come through from this first 40 minutes even before the bulk of the plot begins. Pietro’s family is from Turin (the film’s equivalent of the ‘big smoke’), but poor and aspiring for more, while Bruno’s is local, hard-working, agricultural with a heavy traditional background. Pietro’s father Giovanni (Filippo Timi) also takes special interest in Bruno, as he represents the more athletic and adventurous soul he wishes his son had, which is discovered when they scale mountains and glaciers together.

Pietro’s relationship with his father disintegrates through his adolescence and he follows various unfulfilling study and career paths while returning to the mountains to see his mother. Aside from a few chance meetings throughout the years in Turin or in the mountains, Bruno and Pietro are not brought together again until the passing of Pietro’s father, and Pietro discovers that Bruno and Giovanni had a much closer friendship than he ever knew. The film focuses so much on these male friendships while rarely completely resolving their tension, leaving the audience wondering what is truly being felt and unsaid.

The friendship between the two very brooding, now heavily-bearded men is pushed to new heights as Bruno unveils Giovanni’s last wish- to build a house high up in the mountains so that he never had to come down from his mountaineering adventures. A lot of the tension in The Eight Mountains rises from and centers around this house, itself a representation of the friendship they rebuilt from ruins. They resolve to return each summer to pay homage to their house and their friendship, but many extraneous factors begin tearing them apart again.

Pietro’s philosophical and physical detour to Nepal also gives the film its central metaphor and title- does one conquer the eight mountains and seas of the world to find oneself, or spend time conquering the central mountain; the largest one of all. Pietro in his studies and travels sees himself as the eight-mountain-man, while Bruno is the immovable, rustic, mountain man who will never change.

Aside from the compelling central relationships between Bruno, Pietro and others in their lives, the mountains and surrounds of the Aosta Valley are just as important. Directors Van Groeningen and Vandermeersch take their time with both their cinematography and the script, with silence and landscape speaking volumes even when their characters are not. Everything down to the soundtrack (all songs by the incredible Daniel Norgren), performances, and scenery lend themselves to a deep and brooding film with stunning imagery.

4.5 stars out of 5

The Eight Mountains is one of the many films showing as part of ST. ALi Italian Film Festival, which runs from 28th September to 25th October 2023 in Perth at Palace Raine Square, Windsor Cinema, Luna Leederville and Luna on SX. More info and session times are available at the Italian Film Festival Website