Fire of Love
Composite Score: 84.03
Featuring: Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft, Miranda July, Alka Balbir, Guillaume Tremblay, and Mezi Atwood
Director: Sara Dosa
Writers: Sara Dosa, Erin Casper, Jocelyne Chaput, and Shane Boris
Genres: Documentary, Biography, Nature
MPAA Rating: PG for some thematic material including some unsettling images, and brief smoking
Box Office: $1.70 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Fire of Love is the acclaimed 2022 documentary about Katia and Maurice Krafft – a volcanologist couple who died in a volcanic explosion in 1991 in Japan. The film is comprised primarily of footage taken by the Kraffts while they were working on and around volcanoes throughout their careers, with some archival interviews, narration by Miranda July, and voiceovers based on their writings interspersed throughout. The Academy Award-nominated documentary tells a story of love, tragedy, and the need for scientific study and advising in our world today, exploring the Kraffts’ personal lives, their studies of volcanoes, and their efforts to increase awareness of the warning signs for eruptions and reduce the death toll of such catastrophes. The combination of visuals, unique story, and important message make it a film worth watching.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
By taking a two-pronged approach to its subject matter, Fire of Love shoots itself in the foot a bit, detracting from the emotional impact of the doomed love story at its center and from its message of the need for governments to take the advice of experts to prevent disaster by not fully committing to either. A film that spent a bit more time on either portion of its content (or both) would be more effective than this one. As it stands, the romance and death of the volcanologists is presented more as a fun bit of trivia with some dramatic weight, but no great emotional payoff because the footage and writings they had limited the filmmakers’ ability to tell a grand love story that leaves the audience devastated at its doomed end. In the same way, what seems to be the message point of the film – the preventable disaster of the Chilean volcano – comes across as too much of an afterthought because it isn’t even introduced until the film has already been going for an hour. Talks of a feature film adaptation of this documentary have me guardedly optimistic because it could fix these issues fairly easily because it won’t be confined by the existing footage.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
Just in concept, Fire of Love is a really cool documentary: Taking archive footage shot by now-dead volcanologists and cutting it together with some of their own words and voiceover narration to tell their tragic love story and share their message of protecting people by sharing scientific discoveries? Count me in. While the concept might be a bit more successful in theory than it is in this particular practice, it remains technically well-executed in this documentary. The footage used (especially of the volcanoes) helps present the story that the filmmakers want to tell fairly well, and it looks excellent. Lava flows, eruptions, landslides, ash clouds, all of it is captured in a beautiful remastering of the original shots taken by the Kraffts and their associates. Even when the story wears out its welcome or where the message feels less than clear, the footage keeps the audience dialed-in to the screen, wanting to see more of the glorious might of nature, just like they did.
The execution of the concepts in Fire of Love is well done, giving the audience a visually pleasing documentary done in a fairly unique style that is worthy of its recognition as one of the Greatest Films of All Time. It leaves something to be desired in its story and message execution that even the great visuals can’t fully excuse, but it’s still definitely not bad. This film is currently streaming on Disney+ for anyone looking to watch it in the near future.
