Fire of Love

Gorgeous volcano footage captured by the subjects of the documentary. But I could really do without the breathy, disinterested female narrator, acting like all life is a passing dream. You don't learn very much about Maurice and Katia's work except that they sure did love volcanos!

I ended up having similar feelings with this documentary as I did with "The Biggest Little Farm": A film made for California hippies who want to gaze wondrously at nature without actually learning anything.

I think that I would be more inclined to seek out the films which Maurice and Katia created themselves, rather than watching this one again. But this is a decent, pretty-looking time killer.

Katia, Maurice and the volcano: a fiery menage a trois that will not end well, unless of course, it really is better to burn out than to fade away. For a movie that begins with a startling spoiler (our French lovers succumb to their lust for lava), "Fire of Love" spends the entirety of this documentary giddily championing our infectiously doomed couple as they crisscross the globe in search of volcanic activity.

Not flighty danger seekers, the Kraffts were dedicated volcanologists and filmmakers who faced danger with acceptance but also with a joie de vivre. Among spectacular in situ footage we are also treated to Maurice peppering the talk show circuit, eagerly detailing their latest escapades with boyish exuberance, some humour, and scientific wonder.

This is a man who professed his greatest wish in absolute seriousness was riding a canoe down a river of lava. Instead of shooting down this frivolous dream, Katia notes that it would have to be made of rocketship grade metal. All that is missing is a steady rain of heart emojis throughout the screening. It makes one want to dispatch for the nearest eruption. Almost.

This is where film comes in: we can enjoy an exciting, dangerous dance with death, learn a few things, and cherish the power of unbridled love. A raison d'etre shared, is what makes the world go round, or explode.

A bientot.

HipCRANK.

So first the documentary itself. It's skillfully done and smooth to the end. The pace is perfect and every 10 minutes there are these small intermezzos of fun between Katia and Maurice. In all these short quotes of them, you can sense there commitment to each other and to their work.

Speaking about work. Respect for this team. These are all recordings of other people you have to work with and create a story out of all these hours of scenes that look the same but are from different times and different locations.

The foley work is a little bit to exaggerated. All these footsteps and noise sounds. You can almost picture someone stepping into some gravel with a microphone next to it.

About the voice over. Unbelievable this wasn't redone. It feels like the text was sent to Miranda July without any video material and she recorded everything with her phone in a bedroom. Why Sara Dosa approved this or anyone else, is a mystery. It really makes the film more dull than it really is.

Like so many others have said; this is a wonderfully put together documentary from fragments of the subjects' own footage. The art work that fills in the visual gaps is creative and timeless, but still felt representative of the time periods we were witnessing. It's amazing how much of their lives they were able to put on film. The soundtrack/score was not distracting, which is a good thing IMO, unless it's distracting for a good reason.

The most unappealing thing about this film has to be the narrator's voice. It is like a horribly, unattractive spoof of Jena Malone's narration in the film "Into the Wild". It felt like it was asking questions when there was no question being asked. The inflections just felt wrong in many parts of the film. That is just one viewer's opinion though.

Anyways, definitely worth a watch, but could have been better.

Visually stunning, beautiful, awe-inspiring, poetic, and extraordinary documentary featuring tons of lava and a love story that feels like another eccentric Wes Anderson film. Maurice & Katia Krafft were a unique, passionate, quirky, and inspiring couple that loved getting up & close with volcanos and living life on the edge.

SIFF 2022 Watch #5.