Visitors descend through a tight tunnel into the damp foundations of the Teatro Romano buried beneath Herculaneum, with centuries of city above them. The journey is filmed in pitch-black conditions where torchlight reveals transparent waterproof capes, creating ghostlike figures. The documentary follows the region around Naples without narration or interviews, moving from classical antiquity to the present through place-based scenes. Instead of stopping at Pompeii or Herculaneum, the camera stays on the train, traveling from the Sorrentine peninsula near Vesuvius to the Phlegraean Fields. The route passes overlooked towns where architecture shows stratified history, including stops such as Torre Annunziata.
"One by one, the visitors descend through a tight tunnel cut through volcanic rock into the damp foundations of the Teatro Romano buried beneath Herculaneum, with the weight of 2,000 years of city above them. This is a time machine, the guide says, and we are going back. It is pitch black as film-maker Gianfranco Rosi's camera finds torchlight catching the tourists' transparent waterproof capes, making them appear like ghosts."
"Released on the streaming platform Mubi this March, Rosi's documentary Pompei: Below the Clouds threads a needle from classical antiquity to the present day. Presented in ashen black and white, without narration or interviews, it places the viewer inside the region surrounding Naples and leaves us there, each scene presenting a place and a moment in the area's long history."
"In Below the Clouds, Rosi does not alight there. He stays on the train, camera in hand, and traverses this seismic landscape from the Sorrentine peninsula, crowned by Vesuvius in the east, to the lesser-known craters of the Phlegraean Fields in the west. The train, Rosi says, is my time machine. His lens draws us into the Naples most visitors never see."
"Before the Circumvesuviana reaches the archaeological site of Pompei, it skirts the Bay of Naples, passing through a number of overlooked towns characterised by a stratification of history visible in the architecture. Drawing into the station of Torre Annunziata, Rosi holds the camera"
Read at www.theguardian.com
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