KRAFFT WORK (FIRE OF LOVE)

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One of the most delightful things about the Oscars is working your way around the Best Documentary Feature nominees.

The quality of nominated features is almost always high.

The stories they tell are fascinating.

The images assembled and the editing are often stunning.

This is certainly true of Sara Dosa's 'Fire of Love,' a National Geographic and Neon documentary about two French volcanologists, their relationship and their zeal for understanding volcanos.

© Sandbox Films & National Geographic

Katia and Maurice Krafft were passionate about studying volcanos.

They were celebrated volcanologists - the toast of the lecture circuit and French media, thanks to their pioneering work chronicling volcanic eruptions through photography, film and recording.

The Kraffts' daring as they filmed volcanoes was notorious.

But their deaths during the June 1991 Mount Unzen eruption in Japan only added to their lore in the volcanology community.

The stunning images of lava flows and ash explosions captured by Katia and Maurice have been studied and marvelled at for years.

© Sandbox Films & National Geographic

They are so mesmerising they have caught the eye of the celebrated director Werner Herzog who has featured their work in two documentaries 'Into the Inferno' - a 2016 Netflix film about volcanologists - and 'The Fire Within: Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft' last year.

Katia hailed from Guebwiller in the north east of France and Maurice from Mulhouse in Alsace. 

Both were students at the University of Strasbourg and bonded over their intense passion for volcanos.

Narrated by the actress and director Miranda July, 'Fire of Love' maps out the story of Katia and Maurice's devotion to each other and to their shared interest.

© Sandbox Films & National Geographic

The picture painted is of a couple who were very alive to the risks they took as they chronicled volcanic eruptions in Italy, Zaire, Indonesia, Colombia and Japan.

However the Kraffts were so committed to understanding volcanos and applying the lessons to the evacuation of communities impacted by eruptions that they took those risks anyway.

In the pursuit of that knowledge, it's hard not to feel watching Dosa's film that the Kraffts were like the characters in the 1996 Hollywood hit 'Twister' - running towards volcanos when others were fleeing like the storm chasers studying tornados in Jan de Bont's blockbuster.

Of the two, Maurice comes across as the showman - a scientist who is as comfortable in a lecture hall or TV studio as he is filming craters or joking on their expeditions.

© Sandbox Films & National Geographic

Katia is particularly fascinated by the impact of volcanos on other creatures - birds that have been smothered by ash or lava, the outline of an elephant in Zaire.

She is also very sensitive to the suffering of others and is deeply impacted by the failure of the Colombian authorities to heed warnings about the need for evacuation plans to handle the Nevado del Ruiz volcano which claimed the lives of 23,000 people.

But what's also striking about Sosa's documentary is how often the couple casually talked about their mortality.

Maurice at one point acknowledges the perils of wanting to "get closer, right into the belly of the volcano. It will kill me one day but that doesn't bother me at all."

© Sandbox Films & National Geographic

Katia claims that they are both perceived as weirdos but observes at one point: "It is not that I flirt with death but at that that moment I don't care at all. A fascination with danger, perhaps?"

The other striking thing is the cinematic quality of their volcano imagery - the colours, the scope.

Sometimes the images of them in protective gear against the backdrop of molten lava is like something out of a science fiction movie by Georges Melies or even the video of David Bowie's 'Ashes to Ashes'.

Some shots are like something out of a Western.

Maurice and Katia also feel like quirky characters straight out of a Wes Anderson film.

© Sandbox Films & National Geographic

What is also clear as they made their films, they also had an acute understanding of the language of cinema - the composition of shots, the visual impact of close ups, importance of cutaways in the work they produced.

There'a a gripping sequence filmed on acid lake in Indonesia which demonstrates Maurice's penchant for risk taking, risking death, much to Katia's annoyance, as he and a colleague drifted on a fortified rowing boat for hours.

These are the images that keep you mesmerised during the 93 minutes of Dosa's stunning portrait of the Kraffts.

It's a truly jaw dropping film that draws you into a world most of us rarely think about - helping us understand volcanology.

© Sandbox Films & National Geographic

The final image of the couple captured before their death will probably stay with you for some time.

It is poignant and provides a haunting coda to Dosa's remarkable tribute to two extraordinary people.

'Fire of Love' celebrates two lives lived to the full.

It mourns a terrible loss but also celebrates the remarkable legacy not just to the study of natural phenomena like volcanos but filmmaking as well.

('Fire of Love' was released in UK cinemas on July 29, 2022 before being made available for streaming on Disney+ on November 11, 2022)

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