The story of Katia and Maurice Krafft was made for a documentary like this. In the 70s and 80s, they were feted as the only volcanologist couple, bound by their love for each other and of trying to understand active volcanoes.

Katia was the chemist, testing the minerals, gases, and detritus of volcanoes, always taking photos, and looking at the small details, the intersections. Maurice was the geologist, creating video, footage, fascinated with size and force and motion. He dreamed of floating a canoe down a lava flow and actually paddled a rubber dinghy into the middle of a sulphuric acid lake, much to Katia’s disapproval.

Over two decades, they filmed everything and we get to see the rivers of lava, the lakes of ash, and the silent, roiling, deadly, pyroclastic clouds. They knew they were filming for a purpose – to understand, and to educate – and it is an unprecedented close-up look at the beauty of red volcanoes and the disaster of grey ones. It was the greys they were eventually drawn to as they are the explosive ones and the hardest to predict.

Narrated by Miranda July and directed by Sara Dosa, we find out at the start that Katia and Maurice both perished in July 1991, at the eruption of Unzen in Japan. It creates a feeling of impending doom that makes every shot of them smiling or interview where their giddy excitement shows more poignant. July’s voice is mellow and the slow pace, soundscape, and beauty of the often wordless footage lulls you into a meditative state. The end, when it comes, is perhaps deliberately brief; chance was not with them, a risk they knew and took.

Although it might have been a more palatable film with a little less grandiose prose and tighter editing, you leave feeling you have experienced something unforgettable.

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