Below the Clouds

Director Gianfranco Rosi has always viewed Italy with a loving eye. In the multi-award-winning Sacro GRA (2013), he shows what goes on along the major ring road around Rome; in Fuocoammare (2016), he turned his camera on the inhabitants of the small island of Lampedusa; and in his new film, Below the Clouds, the focus is on Vesuvius, the volcano of which the artist Jean Cocteau said it creates all the clouds. Alongside the volcano, the film also explores Naples and Pompeii, which was once engulfed by the volcano. There is no distinct storyline, no narrative; Rosi primarily observes everyday life, and he does so in stunning black and white. The poetic result makes it clear that, at Vesuvius, the past and the present are inextricably intertwined.

Thus, we see a team of Japanese archaeologists at Pompeii, whilst not far away art thieves are stealing frescoes through secret tunnels. We see firefighters receiving calls from worried residents following yet another minor earthquake, whilst elsewhere dockworkers are unloading a Ukrainian ship full of grain. And we see much more besides.