Review: 'The Eight Mountains' is already an art-house hit — and an emotional powerhouse

In the most exhilarating moment in "The Eight Mountains," a movie of soaring visual majesty and churning emotional force, a dark-haired young man named Pietro (Luca Marinelli) clambers excitedly up a rocky slope somewhere in the Italian Alps, the camera keeping pace with his slow but steady ascent. In time, he makes it to the top and, barely pausing to take in the staggering view, crows in triumph to his friend Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), who's doing some construction work down in the valley below. It's a blissful, tender image of friendship that, like so many images in this movie, contains bittersweet multitudes. Here are two pals sharing a moment of exquisite communion, but who are nonetheless forebodingly separated by a chasm, one that will keep widening