The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft: A Movie Review
A few months ago I went to see Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love — a non-fiction feature about Katia and Maurice Krafft, narrating over mesmerising lava footage from the French volcanologists’ archives.
Its dramatic footage, fascinating facts about one of Earth’s most awesome natural features, and focus on the joyful, adventurous spirit and love between the Kraffts made Dosa’s film one of my favourite cinema visits of 2022.
When I saw the poster for Dosa’s Fire of Love in the cinema listings, I mistook it for Werner Herzog’s latest documentary — which I had already seen the trailer for, and knew was focused on the Kraffts and their footage. I had been keeping an eye out for it, hoping it would pop up in a local movie theatre.
I have been keeping an eye out for Herzog’s film since, curious to see how it compares. As I suspected, The Fire Within skipped a cinema run and went directly to television through distributors such as BBC Storyville and ARTE.
Cinema distribution is fucked… but that’s a topic in itself.
The Kraffts spent their lives studying and filming volcanoes, their effects on nature, people, and the wildlife around them, with something of a zeal. They died together in a volcanic eruption in Japan on June 3, 1991, leaving…
