Evaluate: In ‘Fireplace of Love,’ the mysterious alchemy of romance

Hardly ever have the circumstances for love been much less hospitable than in Sara Dosa’s documentary “Fireplace of Love.“ But right here, amid shifting tectonics and quaking craters, French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft forge a surprisingly rock-steady romance.

“Fireplace of Love,“ excavates their distinctive story, and the jaw-dropping footage the Kraffts left behind, in a movie exploding with awe for the mysterious alchemies of affection and obsession.

The Kraffts had been outstanding scientists within the ‘70s and ‘80s whose ardour and occasional crimson knit hats made them a bit just like the Cousteaus of the volcano world. Like that underwater explorer, the Kraffts additionally picked up filmmaking to chronicle their investigations — which regularly drew them, like moths to the flame, perilously near not-at-all-dormant volcanoes. They died in 1991 in a cascading grey cloud on Japan’s Mount Unzen, forsaking tons of of hours of footage, and as narrator Miranda July says early within the movie, one million questions.

Maurice, a gregarious geologist, and Katia, a extra reserved geochemist, had been introduced collectively by their mutual infatuation for volcanoes. After marrying, they determined to not have youngsters and as a substitute devoted themselves to being, as Maurice phrases it, “volcano runners.“ They journey from energetic volcano to energetic volcano, residing based on the Earth’s rhythms. With a wry smile, they confess a lot of their colleagues view them as weirdos.

“If I may eat rocks, I’d keep on the volcano and by no means come down,“ Maurice says proudly in a single TV interview.

Dosa makes use of July’s narration to border the Kraffts’ story with a playful sense of marvel and whimsy — a generally overly intrusive, too neatly packaged machine in a movie the place what’s on display screen is so overwhelmingly highly effective that it may not want the additional layer.

Many times, we see the couple traversing charred alien landscapes with geysers of spewing lava. Their protecting outfits are a bit of nutty, too, like props from an previous science-fiction movie or one thing left over from the henchmen of a Bond villain. However with rivers of crimson throughout, they’re nearly at play — wild silhouettes dancing on the precipice. When set to Brian Eno’s beguiling “The Large Ship,” the imagery isn’t hellish however heavenly.

On one volcano, Maurice fries an egg on the new floor. On one other, he paddles an inflatable raft over a steaming lake of acid. Katia objects to that gambit however they’re resolutely inseparable. Nonetheless, if “Fireplace of Love” is principally a love story, the chemistry we see between them isn’t the type that makes you swoon. It’s simple to marvel if what binds them collectively isn’t a lot love as mutual obsession. They each burn with a red-hot need much less for one another than to be as near the volcano as attainable. Are they chasing life, or dying? Maurice calls it “a kamikaze existence.“

However what’s unknowable can be on the coronary heart of “Fireplace of Love,” a film about two individuals not afraid however intoxicated by forces far bigger than they’re. Katia and Maurice are, she says, “like flies in a saucepan that’s boiling over.” And it’s their contagious sense of awe for nature that retains the flames of “Fireplace of Love” smoldering.

“Fireplace of Love,” a Neon launch, is rated PG by the Movement Image Affiliation of America for thematic materials together with some unsettling photographs, and transient smoking. Operating time: 93 minutes. Three stars out of 4.

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Observe AP Movie Author Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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