Sara Dosa’s documentary is a poignant and illuminating tribute to two lost pioneers.
The French couple dedicated their lives to witnessing the most dangerous eruptions in the world, and filmed it all themselves, in order to remember every minute.
Aspects of Sara Dosa’s documentary about the Alsatian volcanologists (partners in life as well as study) naturally evoke elements of Wes Anderson’s twee 2004 hit:
The pair frequently donned red knit caps on their adventures, and Maurice’s filmed recordings are often playfully affected in a manner redolent of the French New Wave.
Dosa’s own direction incorporates whimsical editing by Erin Casper and Jocelyne Chaput and that prevailing symptom of the contemporary documentary disease, interpretive animated sequences. Adding to the somewhat turgid effect are narration by indie darling Miranda July (her serene voice apropos yet still fulsome) and music by Nicolas Godin, one half of the French band Air.
It tells the incredible story of Katia and Maurice, who traveled the world studying active volcanoes, taking photographs and recording live footage of the ruptures from uncomfortably close proximity.
The images that comprise much of this archival-based docu succeed in highlighting this tenet of their work, making it a valuable introduction to their unique lives and groundbreaking studies, and to their own singular artistry.
One also senses how impactful their work was, helping convince the Philippine government that evacuation would be necessary after the onset of activity at Mount Pinatubo in 1991.
The film goes into detail about the distinction between “red” and “gray” volcanoes, the latter being deadly.
The Kraftts focused on these toward the end of their lives; they eventually succumbed to their passion after being caught in a pyroclastic flow after the 1991 eruption of Mount Unzen in Japan.
This documentary is a testament to the beauty and brilliance of their craft, and to the preternatural devotion that compelled them.
Maurice Krafft had worried that “the spectacle could vanish”; that all the wonders of the natural world he witnessed would fade from view.
He and his wife Katia saw things more beautiful and dangerous than any viewer, visiting every possible volcano to comprehend the natural forces that frame our world.
The couple filmed everything: eruptions, discoveries, each other in immortalized moments so they could always hold on to them.
The filmmaker fills the gaps in the Kraffts’ hundreds of hours of 16mm footage, all of which was silent when she found it.
Dosa recruits fellow filmmaker Miranda July to narrate the film, reading a script that’s always factual, and sometimes existential and even lyrical. The questions that July-as-narrator asks of the Kraffts, and the emotion that July gives with her performance lend the film its unusual tender quality.
“Understanding is love’s other name,” she whispers, as Maurice and Katia fall in love in a montage scored by Brian Eno’s romantic 1975 song ‘The Big Ship’.
Dosa keeps a firm grasp on the Kraffts’ ambition, intelligence, and lifestyle.
The Kraffts warned so many around the world of the dangers of volcanoes, avoiding major natural disasters and teaching how to better care for the planet.
At one point Maurice says he hopes that by living far away from humans up in the clouds and mountains, he’ll learn to appreciate us a little better.
