Exploring Naples’ Ancient Layers, Inspired by Gianfranco Rosi’s ‘Pompei: Below the Clouds’.

One by one, the visitors descend through a tight tunnel cut through ancient volcanic rock, a passage into the cool, damp foundations of the Teatro Romano, an architectural marvel buried beneath the modern city of Herculaneum. Two millennia of history press down, a silent testament to the catastrophic events of AD 79. “This is a time machine,” the guide intones, her voice echoing in the subterranean darkness, “and we are going back.” In this profound darkness, as captured by acclaimed filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi’s camera for his latest documentary, Pompei: Below the Clouds, torchlight illuminates the transparent waterproof capes of the tourists, transforming them into fleeting, ghostly figures traversing the threshold between epochs. Rosi, a master of non-narrative cinema known for his unflinching gaze on human experience and landscape—a Golden Lion winner for Sacro GRA and a Golden Bear recipient for Fire at Sea—employs his signature observational style to plunge viewers into the deep currents of time that define this unique Italian region.

Released on the streaming platform Mubi this March, Pompei: Below the Clouds is more than a mere travelogue; it is a cinematic meditation that threads a delicate needle from classical antiquity to the vibrant, often tumultuous, present day. Presented in striking, ashen black and white, and eschewing conventional narration or interviews, the film immerses the viewer within the seismic landscape surrounding Naples. Each meticulously framed scene acts as a window onto a specific place and a precise moment in the area’s sprawling, layered history, inviting contemplation rather than dictation. Rosi’s approach is a deliberate artistic choice, forcing the audience to confront the raw reality and the profound echoes of the past without explanatory hand-holding, fostering a deeper, more personal engagement with the subject matter.

Naples, a city whose very name, Neapolis, meaning "new city" in Greek, belies its extraordinary antiquity, stands as one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban centers in the world. Its origins stretch back to the 9th century BC, evolving from a Greek colony into a vital Roman port, and subsequently enduring centuries of diverse rulers and cultural influences. Most visitors, drawn by the allure of the region’s most famous archaeological sites, typically experience only a superficial glimpse of this sprawling metropolis before boarding the venerable Circumvesuviana railway at Porta Nolana. This narrow-gauge line, a lifeline for local commuters, ferries tourists eastward to the breathtaking, albeit often crowded, ruins of Pompeii or Herculaneum. Yet, in Below the Clouds, Rosi deliberately bypasses these iconic destinations, choosing instead to remain on the train, his camera serving as his "time machine." He traverses the full expanse of this volatile landscape, from the picturesque Sorrentine peninsula, dominated by the brooding presence of Mount Vesuvius to the east, to the less-heralded yet equally potent volcanic craters of the Phlegraean Fields in the west. Through his lens, Rosi unveils a Naples and its environs that remain largely unseen by the conventional tourist, a region where history is not merely excavated but palpably alive, etched into every stone and every human interaction.

As a filmmaker myself, who has been fortunate enough to live and work in Naples for the past 15 years, Rosi’s documentary served as a potent inspiration. It compelled me to embark on my own pilgrimage, to re-experience the region through his discerning eyes, boarding the very overcrowded, noisy trains that I, like many locals, typically endeavor to avoid. This personal journey underscored the film’s central thesis: that the past is not confined to museums or archaeological parks but is an intrinsic, living component of the present.

Before the Circumvesuviana reaches the globally renowned archaeological site of Pompeii, it skirts the mesmerizing Bay of Naples, weaving through a series of often-overlooked towns. These settlements are characterized by an extraordinary stratification of history, visibly manifest in their architecture. As the train pulls into the station of Torre Annunziata, Rosi’s camera lingers on these visible layers: the distinctive diamond-patterned Roman brickwork, meticulously cut from nearby volcanic quarries; the elegant Doric columns, hinting at an excavated Roman villa; and the mid-20th-century housing blocks that rise above them, still bustling with life. This visual tapestry immediately conveys the continuous human habitation and architectural evolution over millennia. That particular Roman villa, known as Villa Oplontis, is indeed worthy of a dedicated stop. Believed to have been built for Poppaea Sabina, the famously extravagant second wife of the Emperor Nero, Villa Oplontis offers an experience akin to a secret discovery. Its exquisite frescoes, renowned for their vibrant colors and intricate details, remain almost untouched by time, and its majestic colonnade stands pristine. On any given day, visitors are often privileged to explore its grandeur with scarcely another soul in sight, a stark contrast to the throngs at Pompeii. The villa’s exceptional preservation is largely due to its burial by the AD 79 eruption, not under ash but under a much more destructive pyroclastic flow, which effectively sealed it, preserving much of its delicate interior from the elements.

Back on the Circumvesuviana, my journey, mirroring Rosi’s, continued further east to Somma Vesuviana. Here, a dedicated team from the University of Tokyo has been meticulously excavating for decades, slowly uncovering the sprawling Villa Augustea. This imperial estate is famously believed to be the site where the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, died in AD 14. What makes this site particularly intriguing is that it was not buried by the more famous eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, which devastated Pompeii and Herculaneum, but by a later, equally powerful, eruption in AD 472. This distinction highlights the persistent and multi-millennial volcanic threat to the region. The sheer number of archaeological treasures still lying buried across this volcanic landscape is so immense that it has, regrettably, fueled a pervasive problem: tomb raiders, known as tombaroli, who have long burrowed into the soft volcanic stone, illicitly seeking loot to sell on the black market, a stark reminder of the continuous struggle between preservation and exploitation.

A second, equally vital, train line, the Cumana, runs in the opposite direction from Naples. Departing from the bustling Montesanto station in central Naples, it heads west, reaching Pozzuoli in a swift 25 minutes. The endpoint of this line brings one to a vibrant, working port city of 75,000 inhabitants, uniquely situated within the basin of one of the world’s most geologically active calderas: the Phlegraean Fields. While the dramatic lore and destructive power of Vesuvius have historically captured public imagination, the Phlegraean Fields, a "supervolcano" with a much larger and more complex eruptive history, rumble daily beneath the city’s foundations, posing a potentially even greater, though less visually obvious, threat. The ground here has been rising and falling for millennia, a phenomenon known as bradyseism, driven by the movement of magmatic fluid and gas beneath the Earth’s surface. This constant geological dance has literally lifted and lowered entire towns, sinking them beneath the waves only to raise them again centuries later, a testament to nature’s inexorable power.

Stepping off the Cumana train at Pozzuoli, I was immediately enveloped by the pungent, unmistakable scent of sulfuric smoke drifting over the port, a visceral reminder of the restless earth beneath. I had timed my arrival for a simple, yet exquisite, lunch at Abbascio ‘U Mare, a local favorite renowned for serving fish landed from the boats that very morning, epitomizing the region’s connection to the sea. Afterwards, I visited the Macellum of Pozzuoli, a 2nd-century Roman market situated near the harbor. It is here that one finds the clearest and most dramatic physical record of bradyseism. Halfway up the ancient columns, distinct bands of small holes are visible in the stone. These were bored by marine molluscs during periods when the columns, and indeed the entire market complex, stood meters below the bay’s surface. Rosi’s camera, with breathtaking artistry, extends this observation underwater, descending into the submerged ruins of nearby Baia, an ancient Roman resort town now largely consumed by the sea. Here, perfectly preserved robed marble figures stand eerily upright on the seabed, as shoals of iridescent fish drift effortlessly over intricate mosaics and weave between their feet, creating a surreal and profound tableau of history suspended in aquatic silence.

Between these two seismic and historical axes, east and west, lies Naples itself—the "new town," Neapolis, a designation that highlights its relative youth compared to the ancient settlements of Pompeii and Baia. In the very heart of this city, at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN), Rosi’s film delves into what he calls the casaforte—the "safe of memory." He films Maria, the museum’s dedicated archaeologist, deep within the vast, labyrinthine storage vaults. Here, shelf upon shelf, are countless fragmented marble torsos, disembodied legs, and countless busts—the overwhelming overflow of 2,000 years of continuous excavation. These artifacts, Maria explains, reside in this subterranean repository, awaiting their turn to be displayed on the museum floors above. Rosi, in our subsequent conversation, suggests this arrangement is a poignant mirror of society’s own shifting hierarchies, a silent commentary on what is deemed worthy of public display versus what remains hidden. Like Rosi, I am captivated by these perfectly formed marble figures, these silent survivors of unimaginable catastrophes, which now populate the grand galleries upstairs, alongside breathtaking frescoes and exquisite bronzes, all pulled from the same volcanic earth that tragically entombed thousands of people beneath Vesuvius.

Rosi’s film masterfully juxtaposes these classical marble torsos, representing an idealized ancient past, with shots of dismembered ex-votos—small, often crudely fashioned, metal plates shaped like individual body parts. These ex-votos are traditional votive offerings, typically left in churches or at street shrines, accompanied by fervent prayers to saints in exchange for miraculous bodily cures or divine intervention. This practice bridges the ancient and modern, reflecting a deep-seated human need for spiritual solace and a desire to influence fate.

At the small, unassuming church of Santa Maria Francesca delle Cinque Piaghe in the atmospheric Quartieri Spagnoli, one of my cherished corners of the city, hundreds of these ex-votos are displayed, many shaped specifically like pregnant women. These offerings are left for the saint of fertility, embodying a deeply rooted tradition of seeking divine assistance for childbirth. Such practices, still very much alive and integral to daily life in Naples, powerfully illustrate the Neapolitan impulse to marry the sacred and the profane, to blend ancient superstitions with devout Christian faith, creating a unique spiritual landscape.

Rosi’s evocative film culminates in an abandoned cinema, somewhere along the Circumvesuviana train line, its seats dilapidated, its screen partially intact but scarred by time. Into this ruin, a symbol of forgotten stories and fading memories, Rosi projects clips from Roberto Rossellini’s seminal 1954 film, Journey to Italy. This cinematic act is profoundly symbolic: a film about the past, screened within a ruin, in a city built literally on layers of ruins, itself resting atop another city that was once buried. It evokes the concept of a Chronovisor—a mythical 1950s invention purportedly capable of broadcasting actual historical events. In this context, the cinema itself becomes a Chronovisor, a space where the present tense fluidly transforms into the past even as you witness it unfold. This is the very essence of Naples; this is the profound power of Below the Clouds.

By the end of the film’s nearly two-hour runtime, the viewer has completed a profound metaphorical journey, akin to those visitors descending into the damp, lightless foundations of the Teatro Romano in Herculaneum, compelled to behold and reflect upon a civilization abruptly buried mid-sentence. Yet, Below the Clouds insists that this confrontation with the past, this immersion in catastrophe, does not solely require a museum ticket or an archaeological excavation. As Rosi powerfully asserts, “We are already living inside the catastrophe.” Naples, with its pulsating life, its ancient echoes, and its constant geological tremors, is a living testament to this truth, a city where time is not linear but a swirling vortex, constantly revealing and re-burying its myriad layers.

Pompei: Below the Clouds is available for streaming on Mubi. Herculaneum, Pompeii, Villa Oplontis, and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli are all open to visitors, offering tangible connections to the ancient world. The Circumvesuviana railway runs frequently from Napoli Porta Nolana, heading east to the archaeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum. For those wishing to explore the western reaches of the caldera, the Cumana line departs from Montesanto station, heading west to Pozzuoli. For bespoke city walks and meticulously crafted itineraries through this extraordinary region, Sophia Seymour offers her expertise through Looking for Lila.