The recent documentary Fire of Love is the latest in a line of works charting our fixation with – and co-option of – the volatile natural world

In the 1970s and 80s, the French couple Katia and Maurice Krafft were as famous – and as media-savvy – as other scientist-explorers Jacques Cousteau and Carl Sagan, making films that attempted to get to the hearts of volcanoes all over the world, from Iceland to Indonesia. Fire of Love (2022), directed by Sara Dosa and narrated by Miranda July, is constructed almost entirely from archival footage shot by the volcanologists as they raced from one erupting volcano to the next. This is science as spectacle, as choreography. With their rivers of flaming orange lava, the so-called ‘red’ volcanoes are more photogenic than the ‘grey’ ones. But the latter are far deadlier, emitting plumes of asphyxiating dust and toxic gas. The volcanic association with death is inevitable; we know the ability of lava and ash to kill, to freeze-frame life in places such as Pompeii, and we’re told at the start of the film that the Kraffts will pay for their obsession with their lives.

Η συνέχεια εδώ.