'Three Bowls': Roman Memories and Paths

ART AND LOCATIONS: CINEMA IN DETAIL

Place is very important to the plot of Three Bowls, both in Michela Murgia's book (2023) and in the film adaption, also serving as a reminder of a past relationship. The powerful theme of reclaiming spaces is explored through returning to a place where every corner was shared with a person now lost.

Silvia (Galatea Bellugi) is the young colleague who helps Antonio (Elio Germano) do this, accompanying him around Rome, even with a map of the city.  At the same time, Marta (Alba Rohrwacher) is also thinking of Rome when she describes its features from her perspective to a cartoon cut-out of Jirko, a Korean pop singer who becomes a sort of imaginary friend/companion for her.

In addition to the Orwellian "Madonnas who watch you from everywhere," from the shrines located at intersections or building corners, the montage that visually describes Marta's words also features the Mascherone fountain on Via Giulia.

The first Christian shrines in Rome took the popular name of "Madonnelle" and were an evolution of the Lares Compitales of ancient Rome, deities of Etruscan origin who protected crossroads. Still today, the city has around five hundred shrines, of all types: mosaics, frescoes, oil paintings, sculpted in marble, or terracotta, often surrounded by votive offerings from the faithful who once took care of lighting them, transitioning from candles to electric bulbs in the twentieth century. Most were set up between the 17th and 19th centuries, but the oldest and most famous - the Imago Pontis, on Via dei Coronari – dates to 1523. It was designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, painted by Perin del Vaga, and even mentioned by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives (1568).

The beautiful Mascherone fountain is located at midpoint of one of the city's most beautiful streets, Via Giulia, which owes its name to Pope Julius II della Rovere (1503-1513), who commissioned it to connect Ponte Sisto to the Ponte Sant'Angelo area. The fountain, perhaps conceived in the late 16th century, is attributed to Girolamo Rainaldi and was activated in 1626, following restoration of the Acqua Paola aqueduct by Pope Paul V Borghese (1605-1621): back then, it would have had the river’s waters as a backdrop, rather than the post-unification wall of Lungotevere of today. While the mask with staring eyes and the granite basin are Roman, the lily at the top acknowledges a commission by the Farnese family, undisputed rulers of the area, whose palace now houses the French Embassy.

Silvia accompanies Antonio to many historic establishments, including Antica Libreria Cascianelli on Largo Febo, just behind Piazza Navona, and Biondo Tevere, the restaurant on Via Ostiense which became macabrely famous in 1975 when it hosted Pier Paolo Pasolini and Pino Pelosi shortly before the Friulian poet and director's assassination. It was previously used as a location in a major film, Luchino Visconti's Bellissima (1950).

Also on Via Ostiense is the Centrale Montemartini Museum (founded in 2011), where Antonio has romantic memories of Marta and returns with Silvia; in the same area, we also catch a glimpse of the Gasometer, installed between 1935 and 1937 by Ansaldo of Genova to illuminate Rome. In the Machine Room of the museum - whose defining characteristic is the juxtaposition of ancient works inside a 1912 hydroelectric power plant—the couple's memories include an indelible moment when Antonio arranged Marta's hair to match a bust on display (actually a prop plaster cast) for a photo.

The Tiber River, mentioned in connection with Trastevere in the first part of this report (read here) and with the Fontana del Mascherone and Biondo Tevere (here), appears again with the Ponte Rotto, the famous and ill-fated Ponte Emilio (3rd century BC). Rebuilt several times, it was restored once again during the reign of Pope Gregory XIII Boncompagni between 1573 and 1575, as evidenced by the presence of the tailless dragon on his papal coat of arms, but remained "broken" after the great flood of December 24, 1598.

Just steps from the Bridge, Antonio and Marta meet again, in the most intense embrace of the film, on the riverbank near Isola Tiberina.  Connected to the banks by two bridges, the river island was the site for a temple of Aesculapius, god of medicine, from 292 BC, and continued the vocation through time to the present-day as the Fatebenefratelli hospital founded here in 1583 by the disciples of St. John of God was upgraded to a modern hospital in 1930-1934 by Cesare Bazzani.