There is a curious love triangle that sits at the centre of the new documentary "Fire of Love." It's between a man, a woman and a volcano. Well, all volcanoes really.
There is a curious love triangle that sits at the centre of the new documentary "Fire of Love." It's between a man, a woman and a volcano. Well, all volcanoes really.
There is a curious love triangle that sits at the centre of the new documentary "Fire of Love." It's between a man, a woman and a volcano. Well, all volcanoes really.
The names might not be especially well-known today, but in the 1970s and '80s, French scientists Katia Krafft and Maurice Krafft were to volcanoes what Jacques Cousteau was to oceans. The married couple travelled the world for some 20 years in pursuit of their studies, capturing the spectacles with 16mm cameras and writing colourfully about their findings until their deaths in 1991 on Mount Unzen in Japan. On that June day, a current of gas and volcanic matter called a pyroclastic flow took 43 lives, including the Kraftts and American volcanologist Harry Glicken.
Their deaths were covered globally, but their story has somewhat receded in the popular imagination in the past three decades, though Werner Herzog did spotlight them in his 2016 documentary 바카라Into the Inferno.바카라
Filmmaker Sara Dosa stumbled upon the Kraffts while making an earlier film about Iceland. The Kraffts, who first bonded over Mount Etna and Mount Stromboli and were married in 1970, witnessed some 140 eruptions on every continent except Antarctica and won an Emmy for their National Geographic documentary 바카라Mountains of Fire.바카라 They would famously drop everything to get to an active volcano and were often the first on-site. They were also known for their willingness to get dangerously close.
When the pandemic scuttled plans for another project, Dosa remembered this fascinating couple and the stories about their hundreds of hours of disarmingly beautiful footage of active volcanoes.
바카라I'm endlessly curious and just fascinated by how humans make meaning out of non-human nature,바카라 Dosa said. 바카라I feel like I got to see that in their works so beautifully.바카라
And she set out to make something about the Kraffts in the spirit of the Kraffts. 바카라Fire of Love,바카라 from National Geographic Documentary Films and Neon, opens in theatres in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday and in more cities in the coming weeks.
With the help of Image'Est, an archive house in Nancy, France, and Maurice Krafft's brother, Bertrand Krafft, Dosa and her collaborators were able to get remote access to over 180 hours of 16mm footage shot by the Kraffts and start piecing the story together. A line written by Maurice Krafft in one of his books helped justify something Dosa was already onto That this was a love story.
바카라I wanted to be guided by Katia and Maurice first and foremost,바카라 Dosa said. 바카라They were so playful and full of humour. Their banter is infectious. They're also philosophical. In their writings and recordings, they wrestle with themes of existentialism.바카라
Taking inspiration from the time when the Kraffts were coming of age, Dosa and her team decided to draw on the aesthetics of French New Wave films to help inform the tone and style of their film, including playful split screens and zooms. Even their writings, Dosa said, reminded her of the narration in François Truffaut films. So they leaned into the absurdity and profundity of this strange love triangle with a 바카라deadpan curious바카라 narration by Miranda July and an original 바카라retro-futuristic바카라 score from Nicolas Godin of the French music duo Air.
바카라It was important to us to, of course, tell a story that's factual, that was accurate and reflected their lives and lived experience. And at the same time, we wanted to tell a story that felt true,바카라 Dosa said. 바카라But there's kind of a true spirit to Katia and Maurice that extends beyond the literal factual."
In other words, 바카라Fire of Love바카라 is anything but a filmed Wikipedia page. The film even begins with credits starring 바카라Katia and Maurice Krafft.바카라
바카라We wanted to kind of lean into that idea of them playing themselves from an early stage. We see them as the authors of their own myth and this as kind of a mythic love story,바카라 Dosa said. 바카라This is a co-creation, shot by them and starring them. We're just kind of stringing along the pieces of their life for the audience to connect with.바카라
[With Inputs From PTI]