Fire of Love
Director: Sara Dosa
Year Released: 2022
Rating: 2.0
Documentarian Dosa takes footage shot by French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft and attempts to reconstruct their "love affair," discussing their early years together and then following them on expeditions to visit the likes of Mount Etna, Stromboli, Nyiragongo, Augustine ... and finally to Unzen in Japan, where they would meet their end. The images themselves - of lava bubbling and oozing or flying through the sky while ominous clouds plume overhead - are wondrous (they classify two types of volcanoes: red and gray), but Dosa (with voice-over supplied by Miranda July) tries "unlocking" a spiritual side to the tale, which I'm not really picking up (compare/contrast with how Werner Herzog approaches the same material). The husband and wife team were clearly soulmates - or just weirdos lucky enough to find each other when no one else wanted them - but it seems like they also had a suicide pact which, unless you're teenagers in a Shakespeare play, isn't a healthy way to live. Ironically, for a feature about hot events, it's pretty freaking cold.