Except the car breaks down 27 times. And then crashes.

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2022

#24 : Fire Of Love

Romantic portrait of passionate, doomed volcanologists embraces the mythology around Maurice and Katia Krafft, the scientists who died in the 1991 Mount Unzen disaster.

Unsurprisingly, I've never heard of this - I'm expecting a charming tale of two oddballs with some absolutely stunning footage.  It seems a bit weird that someone's decided to make a film about them 21 years after they've died - but hey, let's give it a go.

The first thing to say is that they weren't oddballs - they were full-on lunatics!  But in a cool "volcanoes are all we really care about" kinda way - they met at university, got married, decided they weren't going to have kids and spent their lives visiting active volcanoes.  As you do!  And basically the film "just" follows them around showing us footage from their archive.

It does indeed have stunning footage - volcanos are just pretty cool and lava is exceedingly hypnotic.  There is loads of footage of them standing next to erupting volcanoes and some of the shots are just mad - the cover photo above is a still from some video but it looks more as though special effects have been used to create these tiny people next to massive eruptions or lava flows (often travelling REALLY quickly).  In some cases you have to wonder who was taking the footage because both Maurice and Katia are in shot and it looks like a very unpleasant environment.  There's also some horrific footage of Maurice's leg when he stepped in a volcanic pool - it's hard to believe he didn't lose it!

The Kraffts come across as a fascinating couple - totally driven whilst still realistic enough that they know that others may not quite understand why they do what they do.  The film also makes the interesting point that although they were scientists, they needed to pay the bills and hence were forced to be entertainers taking multiple shots before deciding which ones had the greatest effect.  It also made me laugh a couple of times - Maurice testing Katia's volcanologist suit by chucking a big rock at her and Maurice frying eggs on a lava flow.

I do have a couple of gripes - Miranda July's commentary was really quiet and I really had to pay attention to catch what she was saying.  It's also ridiculously poetic - unnecessarily so given the no-nonsense attitude that Maurice and Katia appeared to have and you can't help but feel they would have scoffed at some of the imagery employed (although Katia definitely had a more romantic mindset than Maurice).

The film spends remarkably little time on their deaths - which is fine if this is merely a joint obituary but, for me, not so much if it's a documentary.  Yes, I appreciate they wouldn't want to be defined by their deaths (and beforehand they seemed remarkably accepting that it might well happen) but some more detail would have been appreciated.  It would also have been nicer to spend a bit of time considering their legacy - it mentions in passing that 50,000 people were evacuated before Mount Pinatubo erupted because of their research, but that's about it.  And one final comment is that the film really should have explained exactly what a pyroclastic flow was - I kinda knew but I suspect plenty of people don't!

Wikipedia tells me that Werner Herzog has made two films about the Kraffts - and, knowing Werner, I have a sneaking suspicion they won't be quite as straightforward as this one.  There's nothing outstanding about this film, but it's a perfectly watchable documentary about two interesting people with some great shots of eruptions and lava in it - if that sounds like something you'd enjoy, then I think it's safe to assume that you will enjoy this.  At time of writing, it's available to stream on Disney+ or to rent at all the usual locations.

#25 - A tender tale that draws you in
#23 - Disappointingly dull