Pompei: Below the Clouds – A Cinematic Journey Through Naples’ Enduring Layers of Time

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 subterranean journey is not merely a physical descent but a plunge into a profound historical continuum, a concept brilliantly captured by filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi. “This is a time machine,” the guide intones, “and we are going back.” In the pitch black, Rosi’s camera finds torchlight catching the tourists’ transparent waterproof capes, making them appear like spectral figures, an apt visual metaphor for those traversing the veils of time. This evocative opening sets the stage for Rosi’s documentary, Pompei: Below the Clouds, which premiered on Mubi this March, offering an unvarnished, deeply resonant exploration of the Naples region’s layered history, stretching from classical antiquity to the present day.

Rosi, a documentarian celebrated for his immersive, observational style, forgoes conventional narration or interviews. Instead, he presents his vision in stark, ashen black and white, allowing the landscape and its inhabitants to speak for themselves. This aesthetic choice amplifies the timeless quality of the region, stripping away modern distractions to reveal the enduring geological and human narratives. The film positions the viewer directly within the seismic heartland surrounding Naples, each meticulously framed scene a window into a place and a moment in the area’s long, tumultuous history.

Naples stands as one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, a vibrant palimpsest where Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Norman, Aragonese, and Bourbon influences have fused into a unique cultural identity. Most casual visitors, however, experience only a fraction of this intricate tapestry. Their journey often begins by boarding the Circumvesuviana at Porta Nolana, a narrow-gauge railway that ferries them east to the famed archaeological sites of Pompeii or Herculaneum. In Below the Clouds, Rosi deliberately chooses not to alight at these well-trodden destinations. Instead, he remains on the train, his camera acting as a silent observer, traversing this seismically active landscape—from the lush Sorrentine peninsula, majestically crowned by Vesuvius in the east, to the lesser-known, yet equally potent, craters of the Phlegraean Fields in the west. The train itself, Rosi reveals, becomes “my time machine,” its rhythmic chug a pulse connecting epochs. Through his unblinking lens, he draws viewers into a Naples most tourists never see, a living, breathing testament to human resilience and geological power.

As a filmmaker who has lived and worked in Naples for the past 15 years, I found Rosi’s approach profoundly inspiring. His documentary prompted me to undertake my own pilgrimage, to board those often overcrowded and noisy trains I typically avoid, seeking to rediscover the profound layers of history embedded in the everyday.

Before the Circumvesuviana reaches the globally recognized archaeological site of Pompeii, it skirts the mesmerizing Bay of Naples, passing through a series of often-overlooked towns. These settlements are characterized by a visible stratification of history, where ancient foundations blend seamlessly with modern structures. Drawing into the station of Torre Annunziata, Rosi’s camera meticulously captures these visible historical layers: the distinctive diamond-patterned Roman brickwork, painstakingly cut from nearby volcanic quarries; elegant Doric columns from an excavated Roman villa; and the mid-century housing blocks that rise directly above them, still very much lived in. This particular Roman villa, known as Villa Oplontis, is a destination well worth the stop. Believed to have been built for Poppaea Sabina, the second wife of the Emperor Nero, Villa Oplontis offers a sense of intimate discovery, feeling like a truly secret archaeological gem. Its magnificent frescoes remain almost untouched, their vibrant colors defying the passage of millennia, and its grand colonnade stands remarkably pristine. On any given day, visitors are often rewarded with the rare solitude of the site, a stark contrast to the bustling crowds of Pompeii.

Continuing east on the Circumvesuviana, I journeyed 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 widely believed to be the very place where Emperor Augustus, the first Roman emperor, drew his last breath in AD 14. Crucially, it was not the infamous eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 that buried this grand villa, but a later, equally devastating eruption in AD 472, highlighting the continuous seismic threat that has shaped this region for millennia. The sheer abundance of archaeological treasures still lying buried across the region has, regrettably, fueled a persistent 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 fragile balance between preservation and plunder.

A second vital train line, the Cumana, runs in the opposite direction, offering a different perspective on this geologically dynamic region. Departing from Montesanto station in central Naples, it heads west, reaching Pozzuoli in a mere 25 minutes. At the end of this line lies a bustling, working port city of 75,000 people, nestled precariously within the basin of one of the world’s most geologically active calderas – the Phlegraean Fields. The dramatic lore surrounding Vesuvius has, for centuries, often overshadowed the equally profound and persistent dangers posed by these "burning fields," which rumble daily beneath the city’s foundations, a constant, subtle reminder of the immense forces at play.

Stepping off the train at Pozzuoli, I was immediately enveloped by the pungent, unmistakable scent of sulphuric smoke, drifting lazily over the port from nearby fumaroles – the breath of the slumbering supervolcano. I had intentionally timed my arrival for a simple, yet exquisite, lunch at Abbascio ‘U Mare, a local favorite renowned for serving fish landed fresh from the boats that very morning, a culinary experience deeply rooted in the rhythm of the sea. After sating my appetite, I proceeded to visit the Macellum of Pozzuoli, a 2nd-century Roman market situated near the bustling harbor. It is here that one finds the clearest and most compelling record of a fascinating geological phenomenon known as bradyseism. This is the gradual, cyclical movement of magmatic fluid and gas beneath the Earth’s surface, causing the land to slowly lift and lower, capable of submerging entire towns and raising them again centuries later. Halfway up the ancient columns of the Macellum, I distinctly spotted distinct bands of small holes bored into the stone. These were created by marine molluscs, clear evidence that the columns once stood several meters below the bay, demonstrating the dramatic shifts in sea level caused by bradyseism. Rosi’s camera beautifully captures this phenomenon, descending into the ethereal, submerged ruins of nearby Baia, where ghostly robed marble figures stand upright on the seabed, as shoals of iridescent fish drift over intricate mosaics and weave between their feet, a silent, breathtaking tableau of a lost world.

Between the eastern and western arcs, at the metaphorical and literal intersection of the Circumvesuviana and the Cumana lines, lies Naples itself – known to the Greco-Romans as Neapolis, "the new town," a moniker given because it was considered a more recent settlement compared to the ancient cities of Pompeii and Baia. In the very heart of this ancient city, at the magnificent Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN), Rosi’s film introduces us to Maria, one of the museum’s dedicated archaeologists, deep within its sprawling storage vaults. Rosi aptly dubs this space the casaforte, or “the safe of memory” – a vast repository holding shelf upon shelf of fragmented marble torsos, legs, and busts, representing the immense overflow from 2,000 years of continuous excavation. These priceless artifacts reside here, Maria explains, patiently awaiting their turn to return to the museum floor above – a powerful metaphor, Rosi suggests, for society’s own complex hierarchies and the cyclical nature of remembrance and oblivion. Like Rosi, I am endlessly fascinated by these perfectly formed marble figures, the silent survivors of untold catastrophes, who now inhabit the grand galleries of the museum upstairs, alongside exquisite frescoes and delicate bronzes, all pulled from the same volatile volcanic earth that tragically buried thousands of people under the fury of Vesuvius.

Rosi’s documentary masterfully juxtaposes these classical marble torsos with shots of dismembered ex-voto, small, often crudely shaped metal plates resembling individual body parts. These are traditional offerings, typically left in churches or at street shrines, accompanied by fervent prayers to saints in exchange for miraculous bodily cures or divine intervention. At the small, unassuming church of Santa Maria Francesca delle Cinque Piaghe in the atmospheric Quartieri Spagnoli – one of my personal favorite corners of the city – hundreds of ex-votos in the shape of pregnant women adorn the walls, left by supplicants seeking the intercession of the saint of fertility. These deeply rooted practices, still very much alive and integral to Neapolitan life today, eloquently speak to the enduring Neapolitan impulse to marry the sacred and the profane, a syncretic blend of ancient beliefs and Catholic devotion.

Rosi’s profound and meditative film ultimately concludes in an abandoned cinema somewhere along the train line, a poignant ruin with its seats destroyed and its screen partially intact. Into this decaying space, Rosi projects clips from Roberto Rossellini’s seminal 1954 film, Journey to Italy. This cinematic choice is a stroke of genius, creating a meta-narrative: a film about the past, playing in a ruin, within a city built upon layers of ruins, itself resting above a city that was once completely buried. Like a mythical Chronovisor – a supposed 1950s invention capable of broadcasting actual historical events – the cinema becomes a potent symbol where the present tense fluidly transforms into the past even as one watches, mirroring the very essence of Naples itself, and indeed, of Below the Clouds.

By the end of the film’s nearly two-hour runtime, the viewer has undergone a journey parallel to those initial visitors descending into the foundations of the Teatro Romano in Herculaneum – a profound confrontation with a civilization buried mid-sentence, yet eternally present. Below the Clouds powerfully insists, however, that this confrontation with history does not necessitate a museum ticket or a guided tour. “We are already living inside the catastrophe,” Rosi states, a chilling and prescient observation that encapsulates the continuous, ever-present geological and historical forces shaping the Neapolitan landscape and its resilient inhabitants. The film is not just a journey into the past, but a meditation on how the past perpetually informs and inhabits the present, a timeless dialogue between humanity and the powerful, unforgiving earth.

Pompei: Below the Clouds is available for streaming on Mubi. For those inspired to undertake their own historical pilgrimage, Herculaneum, Pompeii, Villa Oplontis, and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli are all open to visitors. The Circumvesuviana train operates regularly from Napoli Porta Nolana, heading east to Pompeii and Herculaneum. The Cumana line departs from Montesanto station, traveling west to Pozzuoli. For a deeper, more personalized exploration of Naples and its environs, bespoke city walks and itineraries are offered by Sophia Seymour through Looking for Lila.