Cast:
Thomas Salvador, Louise Bourgoin, Martine Chevallier, Andranic Manet, Laurent Poitrenaux
Intro:
... a beautiful, quiet movie ...
The Mountain is almost a documentary, until it’s very much not.
Pierre (director and star Thomas Salvador) is a modern French office worker whose mind is somewhere else – on the mountain. Specifically, Mont Blanc in the French Alps. And so he does, practicing and eventually just leaving – his job, his apartment and his life. This is not your typical ‘I climb the mountain because it is there’, sort of obsession, but feels something more like the plumbing of a deep wound, an existential crisis, or even mental illness.
To a certain extent, this is also a movie about making mistakes, and doing something for which you are not quite ready; about the joy that comes from exploration and dedication to an idea. When Pierre’s family come to bring him back down, it is clear that this is a person’s search for independence and truth, as much as it is about how to use crampons.
This is a beautiful, quiet movie. Pierre doesn’t speak unless he has to, and the mountain does enough talking. The cinematography is breathtaking – in particular the dusk light. There are moments that Salvador has obviously waited to achieve, when the light from the dusk is on the mountain and the mist moves like a live animal toward Pierre and the camera… It feels like something created for Lord of the Rings, and the effect is stunning.
The Mountain was the winner of the SACD Award for the best French-language film in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight competition.
The movie dips into magic realism toward the end, and it is difficult not to become impatient with the change. Pierre begins a halting relationship with a woman who, in a clumsy reversal of the damsel in distress scenario, plays a part in Pierre’s wellbeing. The film becomes long, and the slowness of the communication between Pierre and those with whom he interacts is painful.
The Mountain is a film worth seeing for lovers of cinematography; it is a worthwhile personal journey and asks a lot of the viewer.
Viewed at the 2022 Melbourne International Film Festival
