Directed By Sara Dosa

Starring – Miranda July, Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft

The Plot – Intrepid scientists and lovers Katia and Maurice Krafft died in a volcanic explosion doing the very thing that brought them together: unraveling the mysteries of volcanoes by capturing the most explosive imagery ever recorded.

Rated PG for thematic material including some unsettling images, and brief smoking

Fire of Love Trailer | National Geographic – YouTube

POSITIVES

Maurice and Katia Krafft died doing what they loved, and that same passion that they shared not only for volcanos, but also for each other, transfers seamlessly in Dosa’s simmering love-letter towards two unsung heroes with fearless determination. For what feels like the first time, their stories are given a dual narrative, with one showcasing the undeterred excitement that they shared for the dangerously daring, and the other in the star-crossed romance between them that elicits strange coincidences in solidifying that these two were undoubtedly meant to be together. For my money, it’s the former that kept me gripped throughout the engagement, but the latter that makes this film most valuable, solidifying it with something surprisingly sweet and sentimental than your typical documentary, and held together with the abundance of both on-the-ground and behind the scenes footage that stitches together the distance of their remarkable journey across three different decades. The 35mm footage itself is raw and full of breathtaking moments that are realized effortlessly with an immense scope in scale that demands being seen on the biggest screen possible, bringing to light the beauty in such a devastating and unforgiving force, with our dual protagonists at the center of such thoroughly defined vulnerability. This framing between them and the various volcanos conjures an unshakeable essence of their frail vulnerability, made all the more riveting with the outlining heft of remastered sound design articulating the immersive pockets of these rarely accessed environments. This is equally balanced with Katia’s own journals being narrated by Miranda July, whose intentionally and purposefully monotonous deliveries not only work wonders in replicating the authenticity of a read journal, but also help convey the fear of inevitability between the Kraffts that is established early on, then vicariously hinted at in every irony in passage that Katia conjures from her limitless experience. The deliveries in narration are wise enough to coincide with the visual storytelling without ever overstepping its boundaries, allowing us to experience matters firstly within the confines of the aforementioned footage, then followed with July’s own insightful analysis into Katia’s mentality, which often provides a meticulous-but-defined irony to their various engagements. That same sense of humor gives the tonal capacity a rich spontaneity that echoes the many shifts of life, all the while complimenting the craziness of a career in which the employees next day could always be their coda, until their last irony is unfortunately fulfilled as initially promised. Finally, and possibly most important to me, the film’s story, mixed with its quality in production, garners what I feel is the rare example of rewatchability in a documentary, with corresponding links in disasters that definitely encourage further exploration. Because of such, certain questions are raised and never answered, particularly the Kraffts own spiritual debate of them being students of curiosity versus them being bona fide thrill-seekers. Leaving this ambiguous could be compromising for some, but for my money it only added to the mystique of their everlasting influence, prolonging their discussion with much speculation for answers that can only be found in the first-hand experience of documentation that they spent a lifetime crafting between missions. When the film is over, you do learn everything that the narrative stitches together, but because the scope in photography is so grandiose in scope and occasionally brief in edit, the desire to revisit or even pause these supernatural occurrences feels like an inevitability, serving as a testament to Dosa’s own abilities to keep the viewer invested by the immersive environments so three-dimensional that you can practically touch them.

NEGATIVES

Though I consider this to be the best documentary thus far in 2022, there are some occasional hinderances that keep it from being one of the most compelling documentaries of all time. The first and bigger problem for me is the lack of development in the love story away from these frightening natural wonders. One way to look at this could be the lack of footage from the Kraffts when they’re away from their careers, but this is where I feel more insight from friends or family of the couple could’ve painted a broader understanding in the rarity of their unique relationship beyond it being used audibly to tie certain arcs together, leaving us a greater understanding of who Maurice and Kattia are when they’re not these remarkably brave icons of science. Aside from this, I found some of the pacing inconsistent throughout, but especially during the one-hour mark, where repetition starts to overcome the unpredictable majority of the experience, and it starts to wear the baggage of its 93-minute run time. A lot of this isn’t exactly preventable, especially considering the outlines of documentaries are often so interchangeable. But this is where I feel some of the aforementioned necessity to move momentarily away from the volcano’s could’ve helped the film maintain its creative freshness, with a momentary character development to play further into the tragedy of their eventual loss.

OVERALL
“Fire of Love” is a gorgeously shot and sweetly sentimental dissection of star-crossed soul mates who were inspired and ultimately destroyed by the very passion that bonded them. With the hypnotic and poetic grandeur driving Dosa’s own evocative presentation, we’re giftwrapped an insightfully immersive vantage point among the danger, with two fearless souls at the heart of the unpredictable devastation.

My Grade: 8/10 or B+