The best guide to know Rome is a scoundrel

BarcelonaI can't be objective when talking about Rome. I love this city. Many films have brought us closer to the eternal city, from Fellini to Pasolini, from Rossellini to Wylder. But the tribute that Paolo Sorrentino paid to it in 2013 with The Great Beauty I find it difficult to surpass. I don't intend to be objective when talking about that work either. A film curiously made by a Neapolitan who has lived in Rome for many years. Perhaps this way he could know the city so well, but also maintain some emotional distance to portray it as he did.

We're not Jep Gambardella, the film's protagonist, nor do we have his money to live in the penthouse overlooking the Colosseum where he lives. But we can walk around Rome. Sorrentinian Without going too deep into our pockets, we'll start with Piazza del Colosseo 9, where the film's protagonist's apartment is located. What a penthouse and what a view! I wish I could be Gambardella, despite being an unpleasant, unpresentable, and scoundrel. A character who, nevertheless, is seductive, as Rome is. A city that can be unpleasant, unpresentable, and scoundrel. Because Rome's charm is that strange balance between beauty and ugliness, between peace and chaos, between being one of the most sinful cities and having the Holy Vatican City within it. A capital of friars and churches, of drunkenness and drugs, as journalist Nicola Lagioia explains in his magnificent book. The city of the living.

Gambardella is the best guide to discover Rome, as he walks slowly, sometimes when the sun rises along the Tiber and the streets are empty. And Rome must be explored without haste. Sorrentino shot the film in beautiful locations that not all tourists visit, as they already have enough to do in the Vatican, the Imperial Forum, the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon. But Rome has so much hidden beauty that the film takes us to less visited places like the Sacchetti and Braschi Palaces. Or the Palazzo Brancaccio, where they set the Botox injection scene. The film allows you to stroll through Piazza Navona and look out the window next to one of the bell towers of the Church of Sant'Agnèse in Agone, go to the Park of the Aqueducts in the south of the city or climb the Gianicolo, where the film begins, at the foot of the statue of Garibaldi, where the motto is written.

Rome is beautiful and decadent, like the protagonists of the film. A city victim of having a glorious past, like the protagonists. Rome is a good place to wait for the end of the world, as Federico Fellini said, walking through the Baths of Caracalla where giraffes disappear in the film, admiring works by Bernini and Borromini Or letting loose at parties like the one at the beginning of the film, the one under a large Martini sign. A party located at 5 Via Bissolati. But you'll find the door closed. Not everyone can be Gambardella. You won't find the Martini sign either. It was removed in 2019.

Recommendation for traveling to Rome.

Film: The Great Beauty

Director: Paolo Sorrentino

Year: 2013