Cannes 2022: Exploring ‘The Eight Mountains’ with Luca Marinelli
by Alex Billington
Might 19, 2022
“It is not the mountain we conquer, however ourselves.” –Sir Edmund Hillary. Mountains are mystical, magical, and extraordinary. Some persons are born within the mountains, and so they by no means depart, unable to step away from them. Some persons are born within the mountains, and depart to search out their place elsewhere, but all the time longing to return. Those that are drawn to their poetic majesty always remember their grandeur and immensity irrespective of the place they’re on this planet. Among the finest movies from the 2022 Cannes Movie Competition to this point is The Eight Mountains, an Italian function (initially Le Otto Montagne) co-directed by Belgian filmmakers Felix van Groeningen (director of The Damaged Circle Breakdown, Belgica, and Lovely Boy) and Charlotte Vandermeersch. It is one other breathtaking, sluggish burn story about males and mountains. It takes its time, following boys rising into males as two mates navigate the cliffs, passages, and snowy peaks of their lives.
This intensive two-and-a-half-hour movie is certainly a poetic and transferring story about mountains – they are the primary character regardless that the remainder of the story follows two males all through their lives. It is soulful, stirring storytelling on a grand scale. The opening act of the movie initially performs out like an ideal live-action model of Pixar’s Luca, introducing us to Pietro and Bruno as boys. They meet in a small mountain village, and spend time collectively traversing the mountainside and occurring treks with Pietro’s father. He brings them to mountaintops and awe-inspiring vistas. Very similar to in Pixar’s fantastic Italian story of friendship, Luca, every one of many boys has a unique persona, however they rapidly turn out to be mates and be taught to navigate as they climb and uncover and swim and discover. It is a formative a part of their lives and a lot of it’s endearing to observe. Ultimately they go their very own methods, solely reconnecting a few years later when they’re grown males.
For those who do not already know, I really like mountains. I like them. So it goes with out saying that it is apparent I beloved this movie, too. The Eight Mountains immediately joins the ranks of one of the best mountain movies ever made. It is not even a debate. Each. Single. Shot. Is. Gorgeous. Among the greatest mountain cinematography I’ve ever seen in any movie, due to the remarkably exhausting work of cinematographer Ruben Impens. Somebody might make a complete documentary about how they made and photographed this movie – there’s quite a few jaw-dropping mountain photographs that I do not even know how they obtained them. The movie additionally makes use of an particularly transferring rating and music choice from Daniel Norgren, a Swedish singer-songwriter who sings in English in his tracks on this movie. It jogged my memory of the way in which Luca Guadagnino completely makes use of the Sufjan Stevens tracks in his masterpiece Name Me By Your Title – these songs have that very same form of mystical vibe in right here.
After spending time with Pietro and Bruno as children, the remainder of The Eight Mountains follows their tales as adults. Luca Marinelli stars as Pietro, an explorer who by no means stops roaming, and might’t settle; Alessandro Borghi co-stars as Bruno, the quiet one who by no means leaves his personal mountain, all the time working there. We get to grasp every one in every of them and what makes them totally different – which is necessary as a result of it is a story about rising up, studying about ourselves, and exploring our personal paths in our lives. They’re mates and so they stay mates, however they every undergo good instances and unhealthy instances, and so they every comply with their goals, wherever they make take them. In fact, being a mountain film about mountain boys, the movie finally makes its means the Himalayas in Nepal. That is about after I knew this movie was made for me, as somebody who has taken that very same journey. Everybody who adores mountains should sooner or later go to the Himalayas.
This movie fully swept me off my toes in the way in which going up within the mountains solely can. There’s one thing mystical about the way in which it strikes so slowly, much like the way in which glaciers transfer so slowly on mountains. It is also deeply linked to the way in which mountains themselves are large, silent, enduring monuments of stone. They do not communicate, however they do communicate deeply to us; and even the quiet, sluggish elements of this movie communicate as loudly as mountains do on their quietest days, too. It is also so touching to observe these children develop up, to see a narrative that spans many years and speaks in its personal means in regards to the paths we absorb our personal lives. I’ve already discovered my ideas drifting again to this movie usually, to many of those quiet moments, the so-beautiful-it-will-make-you-teary-eyed cinematography. Even when I do not know what to say, I do know the movie has left an impression on me that will lead me down different paths in my life as effectively. Let the mountains information us to a greater tomorrow…
Alex’s Cannes 2022 Score: 9 out of 10
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