Sundance 2022: Fire of Love (US Documentary Competition) | Review
Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love, narrated by Miranda July, is a nicely crafted montage of arresting and stirring archival footage. It is also a poignant love letter to both the charming and intense couple formed by French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, and the power and beautiful monstrosity of nature.
The 2022 Sundance Film Festival has opened, and we are glad to be a part of it, from January 20th to 30th. Among the first World Premieres we have attended this year is Fire of Love, directed by Sara Dosa and narrated by Miranda July, which is presented in the US Documentary Competition.
When the end credits started to roll, I knew this film would stick to my mind for a while. What director Sara Dosa manages to do with Fire of Love is a poignant portrait of two unusual human beings: geochemist Katia and geologist Maurice Krafft, the epic French couple of volcanologists. Director Sara Dosa has navigated through thousands of pictures, and even more hours of video footage created by Katia and Maurice Krafft over the course their life and career, as they documented the hundreds of eruptions and volcanoes they studied, until their last breath in 1991, while exploring a volcano in Japan. Out of this impressive amount of footage, she managed to capture the inner fire which pushed them to face their fears and study, up close, hundreds of volcanoes, while putting their lives at risk, and producing films to raise awareness about the dangers of volcanoes.
What comes to the fore in Sara Dosa’s portrait is Maurice and Katia’s insatiable curiosity and endless passion for the beauty of volcanoes and eruptions. One falls for them after seeing their smile full of ingenuousness and admiration for the spectacle of nature for the first time. The chemistry between them is obvious, and their fascination for volcanoes is so pure. Sara Dosa successfully pieces together excerpts and footage which pay a beautiful and touching tribute to this charmingly crazy, limitless and intense couple. The use of playful music, including older French love songs, bring lightness to the story from beginning to end, and contrasts with the apparent danger the characters face.
On top of unfolding as a love letter to its protagonists, Fire of Love is also built as a love letter to nature, and to volcanoes. Director Sara Dosa understood that in order to give a sense the magnitude of Maurice and Katia’s admiration for volcanoes, she had to find ways of making us feel the magnificence of volcanoes, which she manages to do with flair and mastery. The film offers breathtaking visuals. Arresting footage of Katia and Maurice Krafft standing extremely close to explosions alternate with stunning footage of lava flows. Helped by a precise and well executed sound design, the film makes the volcanoes alive. The magma is shown as something very organic, which is both of marvelous and deeply frightening at the same time.
Danger is indeed always around. And the closer they are from the danger, the better Maurice and Katia Krafft seem to understand the volcanoes they study. “For Katia and Maurice, the unknown is not something to be feared”, the voice over says, before also acknowledging that “any mistake that one makes can be costly for both of them”.
In voiceover, Miranda July serves as the narrator and guides us through this stunning visual journey. Her voice’s fragility and sensitivity turn out to be a perfect fit for this story whose end is known by all, and reminded in the first seconds of the film.
Towards the end, the film starts focusing on the indescribable dangerousness of volcanoes, behind their endless beauty, leading us to the fatality of Maurica and Katia Krafft’s death, in 1991, as they were covering an eruption in Japan.
Overall, out of the impressive amount of footage and material left behind by Maurice and Katia Krafft, director Sara Dosa crafted a poignant and touching tribute to two exceptional human beings, as well as to the beautiful monstrosity of nature.
Grade: 4/5.
