Adapting the award-winning novel by Paolo Cognetti, directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch (The Broken Circle Breakdown) portray through observant detail and stunning landscape photography the profound, complex relationship between Pietro (Luca Marinelli) and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), who first meet as children when Pietro’s Turin family vacations in an isolated village at the base of the Alpine slopes.
As they mature, Pietro becomes estranged from his business-minded father (Filippo Timi) even as Bruno-emotionally abandoned by his own father-takes up the role of surrogate son. Pietro’s father’s death reunites the two in realizing his dream of constructing a cabin on the Alps, and the project and subsequent explorations of the awe-inspiring mountain range bond Pietro and Bruno in a shared purpose.
Yet despite their connection, the purity of nature and the demands of society both threaten to drive the men to pursue different, possibly irrevocably divergent paths on the vertiginous terrain of life.
The title is a reference to the concept in Buddhism and ancient Indian cosmology that the world is composed of nine mountains and eight seas, specifically eight concentric circular mountain ranges separated from one another by eight seas, with the ninth and tallest mountain, Mount Meru, at the centre.
Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
