Directing: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+

There are many who have seen the documentary Fire of Love who consider it a must-see, and it’s easy to see why: it’s full of truly incredible footage left behind by French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, literally up until the day—spoiler alert!—they died together in a pyroclastic flow on Mount Unzen in Japan in 1991. Their footage goes back years, though, about two decades into the early seventies, and they caught stunning images throughout that time, very effectively showcased in this film.

Director Sara Dosa is clearly presenting Fire of Love as the story of these two people, though, and not just the story of the footage they got, and in the end, she leaves us with a wildly incomplete picture. I’m dying to know what other scientists, their peers, thought of their antics, which seemed a great deal reckless to me. Were these just two idiots so addicted to the dangerous lure of volcanic eruptions that it killed them, or did they have legitimate scientific reasons for pulling what appeared to me to be ridiculous and potentially lethal stunts?

There is one instance, after all, when they literally take a rubber raft out into the middle of a lake of sulfuric acid, and due to a headwind they wind up taking three hours to struggle paddling their way back to shore. A couple of other scientist friends, who are more experts at sulphuric acid, smartly stayed on shore. Later, on their many press tours in support of films they made or books they wrote about volcanoes, Maurice is seen multiple times gleefully referring to themselves as “the ignorant geologists” who took the senselessly hazardous path. More than being focused on the results of research, which you would think these two would be prioritizing, he just seems to love the attention.

Very little of Fire of Love gives any air time to Katia and Maurice’s career accomplishments, only mentioning one admittedly pretty significant one near the end of the film. There is no examination of the necessity of their incessant need to get far too close to lava flows and pyroclastic explosions all over the world, certainly not in any context of the pursuit of learning. Sara Dosa’s film instead appears designed almost solely to wow us with jaw dropping video footage of volcanic eruptions from decades past, and combined with voiceover narration provided by Miranda July, it certainly achieves that goal.

I just couldn’t stop thinking about what the hell Katia and Maurice were thinking. Clearly I’m meant to be moved by their dual loves, equally for each other and for volcanoes, an unbroken bond that lasted until a tragic end that also contained an element of poetic justice. We see a bit of frustrations they have with each other, multiple tongue-in-cheek references to their “volcanic relationship” that is clearly hyperbolic, and a small amount of Katia feeling that Maurice gets closer to the dangers than necessary—all while she does exactly the same as she never leaves his side.

They were to people obsessed, like tornado chasers but with volcanoes. Several sequences in the film detail notable world volcanic eruptions during their careers, including the three months they spent studying the blast zone of Mt. St. Helens immediately after its eruption, which they were deeply disappointed not to have been present to see in person. A couple of minutes detail shots and footage of the St. Helens eruption taken by other photographers, and some of it is clearly rare footage that comes close to mind-blowing.

So, I’m of two minds about Fire of Love, which is absolutely worth watching on the strength of its two decades of exclusive footage alone. Just don’t expect to get much out of the “romantic” story of two scientists so dedicated to their passions that they were willing to die for it. That leaves far more questions than answers, and another documentary would do well to get into their actual research and whether their individual work actually moved the field of volcanology forward in any meaningful way. This movie provides us with no such information, instead playing to the crowds who come for two intellectual people apparently done in by dumb love.

*Dancing with death: two middle-aged lovers in a shower of lava bombs.*

Overall: B