The Eight Mountains

Spoilers for the film The Eight Mountains which I highly recommend you watch before reading.

“Two young Italian boys spend their childhoods together in a secluded alpine village roaming the surrounding peaks and valleys before their paths diverge.”

After the nearly 2 and a half hour long film ends, I sat for a long while on the sofa. Feeling stunned. Then I went onto the roof and took a very long drag of a cigarette. Texted a friend my thoughts. Then I felt the tears well up, though they never actually came. I walked around my apartment, despondent. I had just finished watching The Eight Mountains (Le otto montagne in its original Italian, directed by Felix Van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch), based on the book of the same name by Paolo Cognetti.

I wanted to sit with the feeling the film gave me, letting it linger as long as it needed. Initially I thought it was hollowness, but I then realised it was because I felt lighter. Like a weight had been lifted. It is a coming of age film, but not in the traditional sense, ie a 17 year old learning to be themselves or going to college. It follows Pietro and his friendship with Bruno, who he first meets as a young boy, living idealic childhood moments of exploring nature. He does not talk to Bruno again until his 30s, only seeing him briefly as a teen. They are brought back together by Pietro’s father, Giovanni, dying, who’d taken on a fatherly role in Bruno’s life. It was like the two men had swapped places, after Pietro and his father’s relationship soured and strained, Bruno gained a father. And in the wake of his death the two men rekindle their friendship. There is never resentment over this, both men see Giovanni in a different light and while there is little argument about his legacy, Pietro isn’t jealous or spiteful. The film handles growing up not in bombastic sudden life changes, epic moments with grand speeches, but in small nudges, because one has to move forward.

Pietro and Bruno cannot be together or apart. Bruno seems initially like the successful one, starting a dairy farm and having a small family while Pietro backpacks across the world listlessly. Bruno wants to find himself in tradition, doing what his ancestors did, while Pietro seeks an alternative. They admire the others determination but the dream cannot last. The film very well shows how Bruno’s dream of being an isolated farmer, living off the the land, is no longer viable. He cannot cut himself off from the world and live in the fantasy of tradition as he sees fit (it’s his want to be independent and alone verses his need for companionship and help). Pietro and Bruno’s friendship is a rock, they are bond together despite them living different and difficult lives.

What can one do when a friend struggles but refuses help? Does one sit and watch? Do you go to the cabin you two built together and light the fire, making sure they don’t go cold? Both men are unable to really voice their concerns and inner turmoil, besides brief moments which are usually met with anger.

I sometimes find artistic studies on toxic masculinity a little too on the noise or only focusing on, in a round about way, justifying men’s behavior towards others and themselves, particularly their treatment of women. The tendency is to look at “villainous” men to prove just how terrible toxic masculinity can be. More often than not, there is a lack of subtly. Or maybe, a lack of compassion.

The story struggles between the freedom of youth and manhood, only when with Pietro’s father does masculinity come into question as a child. But even then, when Pietro is not able to go further up the mountain, his father does not belittle him. When they try to relive this freedom as adults when rebuilding the cabin, real life obviously gets in the way. They are trying to capture the feeling they had as boys and the strain on their relationship grows as they realise it is impossible. To quote anon film friend buddy “It's like the endlessness of childhood seduced them back but time is working against them and their lives so they will inevitably clash and drift again…” They are tectonic plates, smashing together and pulling apart.

Bruno is a traditional man. He wants to be 100% self-efficient and provide for his family. He’s stubborn, him and his partner Lara argue about the state of the farm, him only admitting she’s right after she leaves the room. He starts working with his father at 11 years old (in the book at 14) and does not finish his education. What he knows of the world is the farm in Grana. This is nearly the opposite of Pietro, who from childhood is temperamental and argumentative. He works in a bar, travels when he can, it is as if there is only air beneath his feet and he runs to the next place. Despite their differences, both men struggle to say how they feel. One is not more mature than the other, more settled. Both are struggling for meaning.

I think most of us worry about becoming our parents, whether or not our relationship with them is good. Each man represents the others father (this is more evident in the book). Bruno is the hard man, out in nature and hateful of the city, like Giovanni. Pietro coming in and out of Bruno’s life, seasonally appearing like his father. By maintaining their friendship, in a way they are trying to connect to their fathers whilst also trying to emulate them. They want to be boys spending time with their fathers and are continuously let down that they are not. Neither know how to heal that part of themselves, maybe some things don’t recover. You learn to live with it.

There is a story in the film of two kinds of people, the ones who visit the eight mountains and the eight seas or the one who climbs the centre, Mount Meru and asks which is the better decision. Bruno has climbed Mount Meru and you could read the film that it is better to be like Pietro, climbing mountains and exploring the world. But I never got that. Perhaps it’s easy to want to be Pietro because Bruno dies on the mountain, but I never got the notion that either was a better choice than the other. It’s more that the tragedy of picking the mountain because one can never leave, while Pietro must continue to wander, even with the bit of stability of his relationship in Nepal. The red string of fate, like pins on a map you see in hostels, will always be tethered to the top of that mountain where Bruno rests.

The film leaves you with no answers. That’s why I like that it’s a coming of age but in your 30s, because life is not as simple as it was when you’re 17. The answers aren’t as clear as “Be yourself”, “Follow your dreams”, slogans printed on recyclable cups. Growing pains have a whole new meaning. You are living a life partly that of a man, and that of a boy. Where do our childhoods end and adult life really begin? The signifiers seem harder and harder to reach and even when we get some of them, it will never be enough. Because perhaps that’s not actually what you’re looking for. You are wandering the eight mountains to see the great heights of living. I am not sure if anyone really stays on Mount Meru. Because life is peaks and valleys, even when you try to avoid it by following tradition or hiding away in a cabin. The only way to stay in place is to die.

I would be remiss not to mention the soundtrack, mostly featuring Daniel Norgren, mainly from his album Alabursy. The one song not by Norgren is When You Return From Abroad (Quando tornerai dall'estero) by Vasco Brondi. The music sounds like it’s being played from a speaker in the vast valley (metaphorically). Something feels very far away, it doesn’t draw much attention to itself because it blends into the scenery seamlessly.

Thank you for reading,

Enya xx