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| Fire of Love |
Documentary film maker, Sara Dosa, has compiled this portrait of the late vulcanologists, Katia and Maurice Krafft based on thousands of hours of spectacular 16mm footage that the couple shot on numerous volcanoes before their deaths in an eruption near Japan's Mount Unzen in 1991. The Kraffts were prolific in their filming and recording with Katia in particular spending considerable time after expeditions converting their work into books, films and lectures. They were almost fearless in coming in close proximity to the objects of their study whether it be camping on a solid crust plateau inside an active volcano, rowing in a rubber boat on a lake of sulpheric acid, avoiding flying boulders, standing in the sea close to a small lava flow meeting the ocean or simply cooking eggs in a fry pan on the crust of a slowly cooling lava flow.
The Kraffts were signficant scientists in their field, Katia being a geochemist and Maurice, a geologist, they contributed significantly to understanding volcanoes and how best to measure activity to enable a warning system to be developed ensuring local populations can evacuate before an eruption. They classified volcanoes into two types based on plate tetonic theory: red volcanoes that are less volatile with mainly impressive jets of lava and associated flows located where plates pull apart; and brown volcanoes, usually violently explosive, located where plates grind together.
The footage is both stunning and terrifying with the Kraffts telling their own story on camera or their words are conveyed through the voice of Miranda July as Narrator.
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