Fire of Love

A documentary built from the footage of two volcanologists. Katia and Maurice Krafft are a couple who started working in the 1970s. Both are interested in volcanoes and they went wherever there was an eruption. They carried a camera, and over twenty years the footage they shot runs to hundreds of hours. The film was assembled from that archive. People standing metres from a lava flow, silver protective suits, boiling lakes and towns buried under ash. There is a difference of view between them: Maurice wants to get closer, Katia keeps the distance. The narrative carries that as a tension. Over time the purpose of their work changes. Curiosity first, then record, and finally warning: they begin arguing that eruptions can be predicted and populations evacuated, and try to convince governments. Both died in 1991 in an eruption at Mount Unzen in Japan. Miranda July narrates and the text is written in a poetic register. Sara Dosa directed. A visually extraordinary production for anyone who likes documentary and images of nature. For a viewer expecting scientific explanation, the film describes a relationship more than it informs.