Wider availability of vintage footage and a race to relevance has inspired several film-makers to pursue similar subjects
Currently on an extended release in theatres and already earning itself awards buzz, Fire of Love, Sara Dosa’s breathtaking documentary about the relationship and career shared by French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, is the surprise independent hit of the summer. But Dosa is not the only director to be inspired by the extraordinary daring of the Kraffts.
In 2016 Werner Herzog released his documentary Into the Inferno, which sparingly included clips from preserved reels out of the couple’s extensive collection. The meat of that film followed present-day volcano expert Clive Oppenheimer, now tapped for a scientific adviser role on Fire of Love, which draws more heavily on the Krafft archive in its all-vintage-filmstrip format of storytelling. In Dosa’s film, the most intrepid home movies ever made gain fresh vitality in their combination with Miranda July’s narration. Indeed the inclusion of July is the main factor setting Dosa’s feature apart from a second Herzog volcano documentary, The Fire Within, which also focuses solely on the Kraffts and uses much of the same footage. Without Oppenheimer’s guidance or a US distribution deal in place, Herzog’s doppelganger film, debuting months after Fire of Love, has been all but relegated to obscurity.
