'Below the Clouds': Naples seen by Rosi - a land of devotion

Vesuvius creates all the clouds in the world.

(Jean Cocteau)

VENICE - A tale of stories and human lives on the slopes of Vesuvius, Gianfranco Rosi's Below the Clouds is a documentary film in competition at Venice, scheduled for theatrical release by 01 Distribution on September 18th. It's a journey through a land, where the main characters are the Campi Flegrei and the city of Naples. In the background, framed in reverse, Mount Vesuvius is the emotional linchpin and key to understanding the film: almost an imposing rock divinity, the living reminder of the cycle of nature that dominates everyone and creates, destroys, and transforms everything.

It is a film made entirely of places and spaces that envelop those who inhabit them: "The exterior of this film is a succession of skies and clouds, of fumaroles streaking gas through the air," says Rosi, "while the Circumvesuviana (train), like a long, moving shot, delineates and unites the landscape, a hinge of tracks." It is the result of three years of field work: three years of encounters transformed into a film using the slow approach essential to establishing the right level of trust and emotional depth for the protagonists' stories: "It was necessary with each person to build a relationship that would extend over time. I've never consummated a relationship quickly: lasting relationships stretch, change, interact with closeness and a trust that slowly strengthens. All of this was almost erodible, unexpected, essential to giving depth to the project."

A uniting sense of devotion

Naples, the Gulf, Pompeii, Herculaneum, the underground, the Circumvesuviana, provide the setting for a tale made with the stories of different lives. where the challenge is to "follow the frame, while the stories come to life." These are the stories of those who live in these places: the caring gestures of a museum curator; the reassuring words and actions of firefighters; a street teacher in his after-school program in Torre Annunziata; young sailors on Syrian ships carrying Ukrainian wheat for Italy’s bread and pizza; Japanese archaeologists investigating a past of ruins, seeds, and animal bones.

The most difficult thing, says Rosi, was to fit together all these very different stories that belong to one another without any clear links, only to eventually discover in the edit that they form a fundamental part of the story together.

"I kept asking: what ties these very different stories together? Perhaps it's the sense of devotion that runs through all the characters: secular devotion, pagan devotion, devotion to the community."

The art of giving oneself to others is what unites them. The characters are all "devoted" to something: an idea, a truth, a gesture, a memory. A devotion that has no religious connotations in the strict sense, but is a form of abandonment and, at the same time, of resistance, whose repeated and synchronised gestures become a ritual, at times sacred in character, a defining trait of Rosi's narrative style.

"To cite Napoleon, civilization begins when everyone gives something to the other. In Naples, I saw this every day, in every memory, every situation, especially in the people and characters who were part of the film's fabric. Perhaps this is the true glue that holds together all the seemingly distant stories."

Monochrome mitigates the contradictions of Naples

A film shot entirely in black and white, in contrast to the kaleidoscopic explosion of colours that immediately comes to mind with the city of Naples. “It was one of the first certainties I had, even before I wrote the outline,” Rosi confirms, emphasizing how the choice was one of the true pillars of the project, which “perhaps arose from the fear of confronting all the elements that characterize Naples. A way to mitigate them, to remove the contradictions from the city.”

A choice that required not only a different perspective on the city, but also a different filming technique: “I had to learn to observe in black and white, to read the light, look at things differently. Black and white is also linked to clouds: I realized that shooting in black and white on a sunny day is practically impossible, because it creates excessive contrasts and loses many immediate details. Clouds, on the other hand, allow for a narrative that is greyer, where the contrasts are more controlled, which transforms reality and invites the viewer to interpret it differently.”

There is always, both in filming and in the final viewing, a transformation: a narrative that becomes alive, real, never completely predictable.”