Written by: Sara Dosa, Shane Boris, Erin Casper, Jocelyn Chaput / Directed by: Sara Dosa / Distributed in the UK by Dogwoof Films / 93 Minutes / Released 29th July 2022
Review by Rob Deb. Read more of Rob’s Reviews here.
The Pitch: Intrepid scientists and lovers Katia and Maurice Krafft die in a volcanic explosion doing the very thing that brought them together: unravelling the mysteries of volcanoes by capturing some of nature's most explosive imagery.
I had no knowledge of Katia and Maurice Krafft when I went into the cinema. But I left feeling I knew them by their passion, a passion which this film shares with us. Their love story, both with the volcanoes and with each other. The film itself is not a dry retelling of their life. It is highly stylised, endearing and with many moments and scenes taken from the nouvelle vogue and portrays the couple almost as thrill-seeking, land-based Cousteaus. With animated interludes, a mercurial voiceover by Miranda July, and a contemporary score by Nicolas Godin (most well known for ‘sexy boy’ pop duo Air) there is a certain Mandela effect quirk, that lifts the tone from being part documentary and part ‘Steve Zisou’
We know the couple sadly died pursuing their research, but this is not the pathos of Werner Herzog’s ‘Grizzly man’. The passion, imbued with their sacrifice, gives a certain solace to their passing. Out narrator portrays Katia as the more reclusive of the two Kraffts, but it's the image of her out, wearing a cardigan and shorts over her silver suit and metal helmet, watching lava flow, standing against the elements of liquid fire itself that still sticks with me. Much like her husband, who has the confidence at the drop of a hat to make scrambled eggs on hot rocks, so enamoured is he with volcanoes that his shoes scald his own leg.
They are also embedded in the world. Like the volcanoes depicted, we are shown a France still living with the fissures of ‘68 and the war in Alsace. Their view of going to live on a volcano is at once a romantic notion but also a rejection of the society around them which they are equally unable to control. As technology progresses our footage becomes more manufactured by the couple themselves, it's quite clear their funding is reliant on their own films as much as the ‘meet cute’ of their initial pairing that helps cement what we see. They share their concerns with volcanoes and begin to show more of the limit of their capabilities, returning to society to emphasise the need to preserve life in the face of ‘the greys’. They have created their own scale of volcanoes. The notion of beginning ‘red’ where plates fall apart. And the ones that reflect their own relationship, ’the greys’ where the forces push the plates so close together the result can only be explosive.
Despite this, the film is not about science, but rather an acceptance of the natural law of volcanoes, and in response our duty to admire and fear them. Maurice and Katya are not two over-involved, irrational beings. They save lives and enforce the need to evacuate and there is a sense they died as they lived, in passion and awe of the elements and each other. The film succeeds in creating friction and a fascination that pervades the movie. It's a film that seems precarious with its vision at times but will move you.