At the heart of the pandemic, while some were learning to bake bread or knit, Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch wrote a film: Les Huit Montagnes, in theaters on December 21. This story of friendship between two boys from childhood to adulthood is adapted from a novel by Italian Paolo Cognetti, released in 2017. From Avatar to Pinocchio, we have selected the 15 films not to be missed in DecemberThe story, set in the Val d’Aosta region, transports us to landscapes of rare purity, at the top of superbly photographed Italian mountains. Written during the first confinement and revised during the second, this visual breath of fresh air also offered an unexpected breath of fresh air to the two Flemish filmmakers. was a difficult time in our marriage”, explains Felix Van Groeningen. “We still decided to write this project together, but we thought it would go faster, we had planned six weeks. And then we were confined for several months, and we found each other. It was sometimes super difficult, but also very beautiful. We couldn’t run away, or rather run away from each other [rires]. We had to face our problems, and we tackled them through the work we did.”Charlotte Vandermeersch, who initially only considered co-writing the film before joining the director, confirms: “It was a project that did not speak literally of the couple or the problems that there can be in a couple, but also of very essential things in life, our fathers, death, youth… How to express oneself towards the other, to accept the choices of the other.”A self-therapy that won them the Jury Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. With a nice bonus: the possibility of scouting and filming in the mountains, while part of the world was still confined or at a standstill. “It was a great luxury”, confides the director of Belgica and Alabama Monroe. The Eight Mountains starts when Pietro (Luca Marinelli), on vacation, meets Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), the “last child” of a small Italian mountain village which is slowly slipping into abandonment. Every summer, the two get together, play together and explore the mountains with Pietro’s father. One day, Pietro’s parents offer Bruno to come and live with them in town, hoping to provide better opportunities for the young boy. An awkward offer that separates the two teenagers, before circumstances bring them together again in adulthood. Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix Van Groeningen recount with great restraint the relationship between the two men, but also their anchorage in the mountains, this environment which built them each in their own way. The couple of filmmakers, who settled in the mountains during filming, also explore the naivety with which some city dwellers idealize nature, without realizing the harshness of living conditions and isolation at altitude. With breathtaking shots shot at drone or in steadicam, the film transcribes like few others the wild beauty and the exaltation of the summits, season after season. A saving escape for all those who are still recovering from the confinement suffered during the pandemic. “What the Covid-19 did for many people, the desire to recharge their batteries and go outside, was already part of the project, but it gave it even more importance”, confirms Felix Van Groeningen. Surprising choices The 4:3 format (sometimes nicknamed “square format”), increasingly popular in cinemas, can also seem surprising for filming the immensity of the mountains. The idea came to Felix Van Groeningen during the preparation of the shoot: “Initially, we said: ‘It’s the mountains, we do in scope.’ And then, during the preparation, we made shot lists to see how to film a few scenes, and we couldn’t manage. Suddenly, I saw square photos of the places where we were going to film, and I put that on the table. It works very well because the mountain is a vertical space, so you can play with the height.” The filmmaker admits to having also been inspired by recent films shot in this format, in particular Ida and Cold War by Paweł Pawlikowski: “I I had noticed a great deal of freedom in the framing.” The other surprise of the film is its almost total absence of external conflicts, contrary to many classic dramas. Despite the secrets and the wounds, Pietro and Bruno’s friendship resists all obstacles – including the arrival of Lara, who first flirts with one before finally becoming a couple with the other. “Isn’t that the height of friendship? You have to be very good friends to accept that!” laughs Felix Van Groeningen. “That’s life, someone else comes along and takes the place”, adds Charlotte Vandermeersch, specifying: “I had many stories like that in my adolescence, where I said to myself: ‘Ah, I thought it had to be me, and actually it’s her, oh shit, too late.’ [rires] That’s how things happen, and it influences everything in life: you miss a moment, and the rest of the story is created.”Internal conflictsFor the two filmmakers, it was crucial to tell a story of friendship where neither jealousy nor competition have their place. The only real confrontation between the two characters, a scene of physical argument, was even rewritten by the couple, to keep in the end only a stormy dialogue, as Felix Van Groeningen explains: “During the shooting, we realized that if we pushed, it became false. We redid, redid, redid the scene, and then finally, we said to ourselves that it was not the film that we were making. Because that’s what’s beautiful, there are tensions, things left unsaid, but they don’t have any conflicts, in fact [rires]. So in that sense, it’s not a normal film. “Despite the arrival of the character of Lara, some viewers will not resist a homoerotic reading of the film, which has already been called “straight Brokeback Mountain” in some corners of the film. ‘Internet. The filmmakers, who say they wanted to tell this story of friendship “like a love story”, admit that this possibility crossed their minds. Even if there too, they preferred to opt for the unspoken. “It’s a tension in the book too, we wonder, but it’s never really addressed”, explains Felix Van Groeningen. Charlotte Vandermeersch believes: “There is a great tenderness between them, but also an impossibility. I have the feeling that they always want to be closer to each other but that is not possible. And even if Pietro had wanted to make a ‘move’ towards Bruno, he would never have dared I think. […] Sometimes it’s like that, I too have experienced similar moments in my life or in friendships. This reading is understandable, but we didn’t want to force more than that.”It may be its limit, but that’s also why we liked it so much: The Eight Mountains is a meditative journey and melancholy, which lets the viewer create their own path.
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