This is an amazing and captivating study of the personal growth two men and their relationship over a forty-year period. It's never boring, in spite of the film length. The pacing is just perfect for the unfolding of kind of deep love that humans may have for each other.

"In certain lives, there are mountains to which we may never return. That in lives like his and mine, you cannot go back to the mountain that is in the center of all the rest, and at the beginning of your own story. And that wandering around the eight mountains is all that remains."

I'm sorry that I didn't read the book first. I read the preface, and Poalo Cognetti's writing style is poetic and flowing. At some point, I'll read it anyway. THIS is a good example of an award-winning book made into an award-winning film.