You ask a five-year-old what their favourite things are and you’ll likely get volcanoes as an answer, I know it would have been in my top five favourite things at that age. That’s not to dismiss how cool volcanoes actually are, because they really are fascinating. But unless you live near one it’s one of those things that you quickly forget even exist when you’re an adult unless you hear of an eruption on the news.
I heard great things about Fire of Love, a National Geographic’s documentary that came out earlier this year and even had a run in IMAX theatres. So, I checked it out on Disney+ and you know what, volcanoes might be in my top five favourite things again.
Katia and Maurice Krafft were famous French volcanologists in the seventies and eighties. Self-proclaimed weirdos who fell in love over their shared admiration for the power and beauty of the natural formations, they dedicated the rest of their lives to studying them together. Fire of Love presents a collection of their films and still images, narrated by Miranda July, tracking the career of the Krafft’s until their untimely demise in 1991’s Mount Unzen eruption.
I heard great things about Fire of Love, a National Geographic’s documentary that came out earlier this year and even had a run in IMAX theatres. So, I checked it out on Disney+ and you know what, volcanoes might be in my top five favourite things again.
Katia and Maurice Krafft were famous French volcanologists in the seventies and eighties. Self-proclaimed weirdos who fell in love over their shared admiration for the power and beauty of the natural formations, they dedicated the rest of their lives to studying them together. Fire of Love presents a collection of their films and still images, narrated by Miranda July, tracking the career of the Krafft’s until their untimely demise in 1991’s Mount Unzen eruption.
I had never heard of the Krafft’s before, I mean I don’t do a lot of research on volcanoes, and they died almost half a decade before I was born so I had no reason to know who they were. But watching Fire of Love I am genuinely compelled to seek out some of their research on volcanoes as what I learned from the film was really very interesting. But honestly, what I was most mesmerised by what the footage they captured.
I have never seen eruptions, lava flows, and tectonic plate shifts this close or this detailed before in my life. It was so beautiful, and the power of these things really is something to behold. Moments of seeing the lava be thrust into the air and almost crystalise as it is stretched and pulled in every direction, seeing the ground pull itself apart to reveal red hot lava, or the one that really made me go ‘wow!’ was seeing an underwater eruption where the lava was being instantly cooled essentially forming a branch of rock under the water.
I can imagine watching Fire of Love in a cinema would have been a great experience, especially with the sound. The deep rumble that persisted throughout the entire film punctuated with blasts of explosions, or a rush of flowing lava shooting by the camera. Miranda July’s narration left a little to be desired, I found it overly dramatic and downbeat. Yes, whilst this is ultimately the story of two people who lost their lives, they died doing what they loved, and they brought so much amazing knowledge to the world that really the narration should have had a more upbeat tone rather than the sombre almost funeral like tone that July brought.
Fire of Love was a really engaging watch, and I learned so much from it. The footage the Krafft’s captured is mesmerising and beautiful to behold, communicating exactly what they saw in volcanoes to the viewer. Whilst I felt like the narration could have been slightly less sombre, on the whole I felt like Fire of Love was a great watch.
I have never seen eruptions, lava flows, and tectonic plate shifts this close or this detailed before in my life. It was so beautiful, and the power of these things really is something to behold. Moments of seeing the lava be thrust into the air and almost crystalise as it is stretched and pulled in every direction, seeing the ground pull itself apart to reveal red hot lava, or the one that really made me go ‘wow!’ was seeing an underwater eruption where the lava was being instantly cooled essentially forming a branch of rock under the water.
I can imagine watching Fire of Love in a cinema would have been a great experience, especially with the sound. The deep rumble that persisted throughout the entire film punctuated with blasts of explosions, or a rush of flowing lava shooting by the camera. Miranda July’s narration left a little to be desired, I found it overly dramatic and downbeat. Yes, whilst this is ultimately the story of two people who lost their lives, they died doing what they loved, and they brought so much amazing knowledge to the world that really the narration should have had a more upbeat tone rather than the sombre almost funeral like tone that July brought.
Fire of Love was a really engaging watch, and I learned so much from it. The footage the Krafft’s captured is mesmerising and beautiful to behold, communicating exactly what they saw in volcanoes to the viewer. Whilst I felt like the narration could have been slightly less sombre, on the whole I felt like Fire of Love was a great watch.