Venice Film Festival 2025, review movie Below the Cloud

Beneath the Clouds, Fragility and History

Where the earth trembles, above are the clouds—those of Vesuvius. Gianfranco Rosi, for his documentary titled "Beneath the Clouds," makes the choice of black and white, perhaps because Naples' gleaming colors would have generated distraction in the viewer. Nevertheless, Rosi highlights the tremors of the population, all too connected to the shocks of the Phlegraean Fields, with the Fire Department's operations center sorting through tensions caused by the tremors, calming concerns about the volcano's puffs, tempering a fear that originates from the eruption that destroyed Pompeii.

The film presents a cultural and social fresco of what happens at the foot of Vesuvius, from daily work to the history that bubbles up from underground. It portrays what the land of Naples represents—the memory furtively stolen by tomb raiders, the beauty of a fragile and evocative world, both lost and current, composed of unique social and cultural dynamics. Rosi manages to show what is current, alternating it with what has been lost, and succeeds by alternating aspects of profound seriousness with ironic sequences, such as the phone calls that reach the Fire Department's command.

"Beneath the Clouds" is a documentary that manages to encapsulate the essence of a community's life, inextricably linked to its land and its vulnerabilities.