The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft (2022)
The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft
”A couple risks it all to capture the beauty and danger of volcanoes in a visually stunning documentary.”
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Why watch this film?
One of the great legacies of the volcanologist couple Katia and Maurice Krafft, beyond the scientific field, were their pioneering images of eruptions and other volcanic activity, often at the risk of their lives – until, indeed, that was the price they paid. Drawing from their vast archive of photographs and filmed footage – many of the same images used in the contemporary National Geographic documentary, Fire of Love– the legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog (Fitzcarraldo) frames the narrative of his subjects as that of many other "Herzogian" characters: human beings willing to take their passions to the ultimate consequences, regardless of whether the cost is death. Herzog also constructs an audiovisual poem with images of magma, smoke, life, and devastation, before whose beauty it is impossible not to surrender. The Fire Within: Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft is a documentary very different from its NatGeo counterpart, more focused on the Kraffts' immense passion and their cinematic legacy than on their marital relationship. This only makes it even more appealing: they are not redundant works, but vital and complementary.
Lalo Ortega
Assistant Editor at Filmelier
Plot summary
Maurice and Katia Krafft dedicated their lives to exploring the world's volcanoes. Their legacy consists of groundbreaking footage of eruptions and their aftermath, composed in this visual stunning collage.
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