FIRE OF LOVE

The film strings together the wonderful images the central couple shot of vulcanic activity, while Fire of Love also displays a genuine affection for the movie's subjects.

A movie about a married couple of French volcanologists morphs into much more than a nature documentary in Fire of Love, a movie that can be mawkish in the way it relates love to unstoppable forces of nature but overcomes this by genuine affection for the film’s subjects.

It’s hard not to admire the combined, at times death-defying passion of Katia and Maurice Krafft for geology, tectonic plates and volcanic activity after all, especially when the film strings together the wonderful images the couple shot of lava streams, poisonous eruption clouds and terraforming rocks.

Director Sara Dosa supplements this film footage with well-chosen excerpts the Kraffts gave to various news outlets as she deftly merges their professional drive with the love and compassion that fuelled their marriage.

Still, Fire of Love never truly makes the jump from a good film to a great one, mostly due to Miranda July’s over-explanatory, repetitive narration, which too often adds sound and fury to scenes that would have worked better without embellishment.

release: 2022

director: Sara Dosa

starring: Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft