“The Eight Mountains” Review!
Directors: Felix van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch
Starring: Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi, Filippo Timi
"The Eight Mountains" by director duo Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermarch is an adaptation of Paolo Cagnetti's award-winning 2016 novel "The Eight Mountains" starring childhood friends Bruno and Pietro (Alessandro Borghi and Luca Marinelli). Let's meet. The seeds of their friendship were sown for the first time on the mountaintop in fifteen years. The film continues to be a combination of tourist scenes in Alpine Italy or an advertisement for a clothing brand associated with the North Face; Yet it doesn't convince us of the relationship between the two men, instead relying heavily on its literary roots for any stakes in the film.
Felix van Groeningen joins his real-life partner Charlotte Vandermarsh behind the camera for the first-time double credits, the actress and now director. With Tom Hopper-esque framing that enhances the mountain scenes by removing the characters from the extreme edges of the frame, they love stunning scenery as much as their actors. All these sloping hills, buildings and horizons represent the different paths of our central couple – endless, overwhelming choices.
Bruno and Pietro grow up together in the Grana Valley, a lush mountain area near Turin in northern Italy. We quickly pick up and discard the childhood part, quickly cutting between various chilling scenes on grassy hillsides, the decision to suffocate the later scenes instead of honest and meaningful moments. A life-changing relationship between these two people, romantic, platonic or otherwise.
Over time, we follow Pietro's rootless journey, particularly from the cities to Nepal and back, as he uses Pathfinder to overcome feelings of isolation. He is hurt by his broken relationship with his father and feels a brotherly hatred towards Bruno, who replaces him as an ersatz son.
But Diet plays nature like Kelly Richards, and Marinelli's instincts are often wrong. Over the years we've seen great movies about male friendships that slowly unfold into strange words; Here, the emotional intensity fades. Vandermarsh and van Groeningen are clearly striving for an epic story told through small gestures. There are also clear signs of possible homosexuality, suggested and never addressed again; A desperate, unresolved thread runs through the background of every scene.
The film's broad themes “nature” “connecting with the earth” and “fatherhood” are each stubbornly closed off and refuse to engage the audience in a way that actually draws them into the fray. Over-reliance on voiceover grating and music, years of help, Swedish singer-songwriter Daniel Norgren provides many of the film's songs, which, while beautiful, seem like a cheap way to hit emotional beats.
It seems to have worked even more successfully as a novel, so maybe something was lost here in the adaptation phase. Considering the background and acting skills, it's pretty bad. "Eight Mountains" may aim for elevation gain, but it's not a journey that justifies the view.
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