Even though this is a very intimate story of friendship, it feels epic in scale and rich in detail, set against a glorious backdrop of Alpine mountains.
Directed by Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, the story starts off small with a young boy, Pietro (played by Lupo Barbiero (child), Andrea Palma (teen) then Luca Marinelli), spending summer at a village in the mountains with his parents. He meets Bruno (Cristiano Sassella (child), Francesco Palombelli (teen) then Allessandro Borghi), a boy living on his uncle’s mountain farm, living a subsistence life making cheese and tending livestock in a harsh terrain.
Pietro’s father Giovanni (Filippo Timi) is fascinated with mountains and takes the boys walking to neighbouring peaks and along a glacier. Seeing Bruno’s limited opportunities in the mountains, Giovanni arranges for him to live with them in Torino and attend school, causing resentment from Pietro and a rift between the boys.
Pietro has a rocky relationship with his father – he’s a fairly petulant and entitled teen – and the story really unfolds when the boys meet up again as adults after Giovanni’s death. Bruno coerces Pietro into helping him rebuild a dilapidated mountain shack that was his father’s dream and we follow the men through the process of building, reestablishing a friendship and trying to find their purpose in life.
At the heart is the idea of place and potential, represented by a Nepalese fable that Pietro articulates about eight mountains with the highest in the centre – is it better to be on the central mountain and see all others or to travel between the others and look up at the highest? For Pietro, he needs to travel the world to find out what it has to offer, returning every summer to Bruno’s mountain and their shared house. For Bruno, it is to stay where he loves and to build a life, even though there is no guarantee of success.
On paper it sounds like a love story and for a while I wondered if this is where their friendship was heading but the story goes deeper than romantic love. We watch two people grow up, make hard choices, reflect on their lives and evolve as people and friends.
The mountains of the title – mainly the Aosta Valley on the borders of Italy, France and Switzerland and the slopes of Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn – are as significant as a character in the story. Being on the mountain is a life of simplicity, challenge and great beauty. For Bruno it is the only genuine way to live, for Pietro, it is a way to connect with his past and be at peace with the present. For the viewer it is often breathtaking in scale, remoteness and beauty. The exposure to weather and the changes of the season seem an apt metaphor for the tribulations of life.
Overall this feels like a rich tale that takes time to build character and lets us get under the skin of two very different people.
Have you seen this film? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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