Pompei: Below the Clouds

Gianfranco Rosi’s gorgeous black-and-white documentary “Pompei: Below the Clouds,” shot in the shadow of Vesuvius, is an effective companion piece, showing the everyday lives of Neapolitans alongside the ghosts of history still being discovered underground. “Time destroys everything, preserves everything, and then returns to us in an unexpected way.” So says an archaeologist in “Below the Clouds,” working to dig up the ruins. There isn’t much talking in the film, but what is said—by archaeologists, merchants, sailors, by people calling the emergency dispatch center to report earthquake tremors—resonates, subtextually and otherwise. Time is a continuum, yes, but linearity is too limiting a concept for what time is and does. Living on top of and in the vicinity of a destroyed city, buried for centuries, citizens literally frozen in place while fleeing, can’t help but affect the psyches of regular Neapolitans, even if it’s subconscious. It’s impossible to hear the voices of worried citizens reporting tremors and not think of the unsuspecting people in 79 A.D., as the underground rumbled to life.