Fire of Love (Sara Dosa, 2022)

[therewillbeblus]

Fire of Love is what might happen if Miranda July made a documentary about a few of Steve Zissou’s crew members’ milieu-shifting volcanic escapades. July actually narrates this, in what is the most spot-on bit of casting I’ve seen in a film this year, and her dialog feels so tailor-made to her own philosophical-emotional interests and speaking style that I can’t imagine she didn’t have a hand in the writing. Anyways, as my friend aptly and succinctly described this, it’s a documentary about real life quirky, playfully-youthful Wes Anderson characters. What doesn’t seem to be talked about enough is how universally poignant this examination is about raw existential concerns: curiosity, drive, what draws us together and what pulls us apart- from other people or elements in this earth. It’s a love story that transcends professional or relational merits and pitches its focus at the personal highs from zeal. However, it’s the spirit formed in constant dedication and pursuit of our passions that can be shared, and its infectious impact on intimate connectivity or knowledge of the world at large, as evidenced by the central couple and their work, can’t be denied. This film won’t let it.

[zedz]

Fire of Love is great. Herzog’s film on the couple (The Fire Within) is a less romantic take, more focussed on their identity as filmmakers, and works well as a complement.

[DarkImbecile]

I wasn't quite as enamored with this as zedz and twbb, but it is a solidly entertaining document of a very particular and very cinematic shared obsession, if not necessarily as insightful about the romance between Maurice and Katia Krafft that ostensibly is the heart of the film. The hypnotic power of the Krafft's footage of lava flows, flying boulders, and pyroclastic clouds — helped along by eerie sound recordings and some fun musical choices — carries an otherwise pretty slight amount of characterization of the scientists' coupling a long way. Unlike some more critical of the film, I wasn't bothered by Miranda July's very particular style of narration or the twee animated sequences, but I did occasionally find myself feeling like Dosa was stretching toward some conclusions and themes and eliding others that seem pretty central to understanding these volcanologists.

In some of the interviews and voiceovers, Maurice Krafft in particular seems to be talking around what sounds a classic Freudian death drive, and while I'm sure he was committed to using his experiences to help better understand how to save lives during an eruption, that motive comes across as secondary to indulging his own fixations. Katia, meanwhile, has many moments of sensual-bordering-on-erotic interactions with obsidian and other geologic materials, further making the couple's relationship with volcanoes feel less scientific and more polyamorous. There's just enough details and examination of these and other intriguing aspects of the pair's inexorable dance with an incredibly dangerous field of study to tantalize and suggest, but Dosa seems content to keep her main focus on the more easily digestible elements of their story — which admittedly is enough to make this visually sumptuous documentary work.

[Black Hat]

Glad this thread was bumped because I had completely forgotten about this doc, which I knew nothing about, but was incredibly moved by. The story justifies what cynics call idealism.