Fire of Love
Katia and Maurice Krafft loved two things — each other, and volcanoes. For two decades, the daring French volcanologist couple were seduced by the thrill and danger of this elemental love triangle. They roamed the planet, chasing eruptions and their aftermath, documenting their discoveries in stunning photographs and breathtaking film to share with an increasingly curious public in media appearances and lecture tours. Ultimately, Katia and Maurice would lose their lives during a 1991 volcanic explosion on Japan’s Mount Unzen, but they would leave a legacy that would forever enrich our knowledge of the natural world.
- Released:
- Runtime: 120 minutes
- Genre: Documentaries
- Stars: Miranda July, Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft
- Director: Sara Dosa
Comments
- proud_luddite - 8 November 2023
A very powerful documentary
The lives, marriage, and careers of French volcano scientists Katia and Maurice Krafft are the subject of this documentary co-produced by the USA and Canada.
The film has fascinating biographies of the amazing Kraffts whose apparent callings were to live on the edge of life and to be with each other. And there is amazing footage of their expeditions. These stunning scenes make science exciting when we, the viewers, can actually see what is happening due to great risks by everyone involved to capture the footage. Seeing the footage makes the experience far more exhilarating than reading or hearing about it.
There can be a contrast with emotions felt in the film. The fascination of viewing the volcanic mountains in isolation changes to great concern when seeing the mountains' close proximity to residential areas. This is evident in segments in Columbia, the Philippines, and near Mount St. Helens in Washington state.
The conclusion is touching and emotional. It also would have been more so if spoilers were not revealed at the film's start - spoilers at least for those of us not familiar with the Kraffts. Regardless, "Fire of Love" is a very good film. - dbamateurcritic. - david-meldrum - 4 April 2023
Visually Stunning, Romantic, And Tragic
Even as erupting volcanoes destroy and reshape the landscape around them, there is much about what is happening and what is left is behind that to me has a kind of tactile beauty. I can't claim to understand much about them, but so much about them seems to me to beg to be reached out to and touched, felt, and experienced - even if we know that doing so would instantly kill us.
This inherent contradiction seems to dive the French couple at the heart of this beautiful and awe-inspiring documentary; they, a married couple of volcanologists, dedicate their lives to visiting volcanoes, learning and communicating as much about them as possible. It eventually costs them their lives - tragic, but also a kind of beautiful logic to this as a couple who had given themselves to this, chosen not to have children and become so drawn to the object of their mutual love and fascination that in their deaths they become one with it.
The film doesn't short sell the awful power of volcanoes - we see what they cost communities caught in their way; many of the stunning images that populate the film leave us in doubt about the power they wield at their own behest. But the tenor of the narration, the editing of the images together, the score, and the words of the couple, all contribute to us feeling the fascination and allure of the subject. We even feel the ethical dilemma of such fascination with something so destructive, but the film is also honest enough to acknowledge that the destruction also bears a kind of creative enabling in its path.
The result is a melancholically beautiful film which is a visual feast that seeks to stir the soul's deep waters. - Kimal9000 - 27 February 2023
How to ruin a fine documentary:
This archive footage is great! Even superb, considering the scientific and historic significance.
But these 90 minutes worth of great footage is thrown together haphazardly, with little or no storytelling other than "oooooh how they looooved each other in a playful way!" And the female narration is so misguided and awful I just have no words. In fact I reached instinctively for the remote several times, but had to force myself to give this a further chance. When half the words in this documentary are said in a half crying and sobbing fashion, someone in the production surely must have objhected at some point? I know I almost shut off this movie several times ONLY because of this womans voice. Big mistake... Movie destroying mistake!
Watching this without the commentary, it is in fact a fine volcano-documentary! Sadly a silentmovie... - imseeg - 1 December 2022
This story sounded interesting at the start, but failed to deliver in the end...
This story sounded so interesting: a couple who are in love and share their compassion of watching volcanoes.
The bad: BUT... there is no romantic storm to be seen, because this couple is one of the dullest on earth. No fire there.
More bad: then I thought, well at least it has must have some thrilling volcona pictures. Yes, it has a few, but shot in a 4:3 format, with grainy image quality. And most of the spectacular volcano images I had already seen in other National Geographic documentaries.
Even more bad: I love Miranda July as a director, but she has got a whiney voice over, that keeps on droning througout the ENTIRE movie, with LOTS of vague monologues.
A documentary gone wrong... - Shaune_B_Ryder - 2 August 2022
A Love Story as spectacular and tragic as Romeo & Juliet
"It's June 2, 1991. This will be their last day."
Katia and Maurice, then 49 and 45 respectively, were killed instantly by a sudden pyroclastic flow from the erupting Mount Unzen. A less ambitious biographical documentary might have withheld this information for a tragic denouement. However their deaths were far too important to keep for a cheap last-minute reveal.
Director, Sara Dosa rightly says: "This is a film that's talking about time, both human time and geological time, and so we wanted to establish early on that there was a ticking clock".
The documentary tells the true and tragic story of two volcanologists - Katia and Maurice Krafft - who left behind hours of footage when they were tragically killed by an erupting volcano. Their love for each other and for volcanoes, endured till the end.
