French film “The Mountain” impressed me a lot for a number of breathtaking shots to behold, but then it baffled me a lot as taking a sudden left turn in the middle of the story. While several audiences including a friend of mine were not so pleased with this when we watched it at a local movie theater yesterday, I will not deny that I was rather amused by this sudden narrative turn, which will be remembered along with its many stunning visual moments in my mind for a long time.

At first, the movie looks like a modest character study as introducing Pierre (Thomas Salvador, who also served as the director/co-writer of the movie), a Parisian engineer who is about to go to some resort spot in the French Alps for demonstrating the latest prototype machine developed by him and his co-workers. Not long after successfully finishing his presentation, he cannot help but notice those tall mountains outside the window, and, what do you know, he decides to stay a bit longer for seeing more of the mountains.

However, Pierre only ends up spending more time around the mountains. At first, he simply tries to spend a night on the mid-slope of one mountain, but that does not feel enough for him at all. He later goes to the peak of that mountain via a cable car, and he looks around the surrounding landscapes covered with lots of snow and ice, but, no, that is not still enough for him at all. He soon goes to the peak of a higher mountain, and then he comes to stay at a nearly snowy slope area for exploring more of the surrounding area.

Not so surprisingly, Pierre’s sudden change flabbergasts others. As he keeps being absent during next several days, his company has no choice but to fire him. Not long after he sends a postcard to his family, his mother and two brothers come to see him, and his older brother shows some understandable concern, but his mother and younger brother do not feel concerned that much once discerning that Pierre seems happy and content to stay there. 

Steadily maintaining its calm and restrained attitude, the movie slowly gets us immersed into its pensive mood, and we come to have more questions on what actually drives Pierre to the mountains. Although never clarifying whatever has been going on inside Pierre’s mind, the movie simply observes whatever he explores here and there day by day, and that is surely something worthwhile to watch from a big screen. Cinematographers Alexis Kavyrchine and Victor Pichon did a commendable job of vividly capturing all those coldly crisp and beautiful sights of nature on their cameras, and, to be frank with you, I sometimes wondered how they actually shot several key scenes on those rather challenging locations shown in the film.

Around the middle act of the story, the screenplay by Salvador and his co-writer Naïla Guiguet, who incidentally received the SACD award together when the movie was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022, begins to develop an accidental relationship between Pierre and a woman who works at the restaurant in the observatory at the peak of the mountain. At first, he simply requests her to buy some groceries for him, but then we sense some mutual feeling between them as they interact more with each other along the story.

However, the movie unexpectedly changes its narrative direction not long after that, and that is where it becomes really, really, really strange to our surprise. I will not go into details for avoiding any spoiler, but I can tell you instead that Pierre comes to experience something very odd when he later attempts to explore a certain place not so far from his staying spot, and you may not be totally sure about what he goes through next. Is it just a mere delusion in his mind? Or, is it something truly extraordinary?

Anyway, I admire how the movie pushes the story and character more as uncompromisingly maintaining its calm and distant attitude as before, and I also appreciate how much Salvador throws himself into his committed efforts behind and in front of the camera. I have no idea on how much he actually endured during the shooting, but Salvador, who previously made a feature film debut with “Vincent” (2014) after making several short films, looks fairly believable in his low-key performance which subtly suggests a lot behind Pierre’s phlegmatic appearance, and that is the main reason why a certain key sequence later in the film works even though it looks rather outrageous at times.

In case of Louise Bourgoin, who plays the sole substantial character in the story besides Pierre, she brings little precious warmth to the story, and she and Salvador click well together during their several scenes in the film. Later in the story, they must play one important scene as straight as possible in addition to generating enough sense of intimacy between them, and the result never looks ridiculous at all even though it feels quite baffling at times.

On the whole, “The Mountain” brings a bit of surprise and interest to its seemingly simple and familiar story while also often making us marvel at all those gorgeous sights unfolded across the screen. As far as I can from its result, Salvador demonstrates here that he is a skillful filmmaker who knows well how to interest and engage audiences, and it will be interesting to see whatever will come next from him.