The documentary fire of love follows the extraordinary journey of a couple of French volcanologists, Katia and Maurice Krafft, who traveled the world during the 1970s and 1980s to study volcanoes and make them known to a wide audience.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
As its title suggests, fire of love is a love story. It is first of all the love between the geochemist Katia Conrad (now Krafft) and the geologist Maurice Krafft. But it is above all the love they have for volcanoes, to the point of devoting their lives to them.
From the start of Sara Dosa’s documentary, we know that this love story will end badly. While scrolling images of the couple, a narrator informs us: “Here is Katia. And he is Maurice. We are in 1991. June 2. Tomorrow will be their last day. »
The two volcanologists actually lost their lives on June 3, 1991 in a pyroclastic flow near the Unzen volcano in Japan.
Katia and Maurice Krafft wanted to get as close as possible to volcanic phenomena, not hesitating to camp in the crater of active volcanoes to understand their mechanism. They left writings, thousands of photos, hours of films. Sara Dosa drew on these archives to trace the life of this atypical, charismatic couple.
It is therefore with spectacular images that the filmmaker weaves her story. The film won the prize for best editing at the 2022 Sundance festival and we quickly understand why: editors Erin Casper and Jocelyne Chaput use the different sequences with great creativity to express an emotion or evoke an atmosphere.
Humor is often present: Sara Dosa offers four different versions of the first meeting of the two young volcanologists and finds a way to insert an astonishing sequence of a young Maurice Krafft who sails on a lake of sulfuric acid at board an inflatable raft.
Science is also highlighted: Maurice Krafft makes a distinction between red volcanoes, which release torrents of lava and which are relatively predictable, and gray volcanoes, which can explode without warning and which are therefore more deadly.
Katia and Maurice Krafft are shocked by the tragedy in Nevada del Ruiz, Colombia in 1985, which killed more than 23,000 people because authorities ignored the warnings of several volcanologists.
The French couple are stepping up their efforts to make governments more aware of the dangers of volcanoes. Mount Unzen puts an end to their mission, but the film does not pay into pathos, on the contrary. Katia and Maurice Krafft are very philosophical about the risks they run.
“I prefer an intense and short life than a long and monotonous one”, proclaims Maurice Krafft.
Rarely have science and love been so incandescent.
Documentary
fire of love (VF: Fire of Love: in the heart of the volcanoes)
Sara Dosa
With Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft
93 minutes
Indoors