The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft (2022) 83% 3★

– I have seen so much eruptions in 23 years that even if I die tomorrow, I don't care.

– Now on the Italian volcano Stromboli, they come up with something that looks like out of a carnival. They brought along specially made helmets, rather grotesque. The idea behind it was protection against chunks of flying rocks. And now they stage it, fake it for the camera. They shoot several takes. Watch the guy in the background. I love his fake acting. Katia seems to be embarrassed, unconvinced. These helmets make your movements clumsy. No serious volcanologist ever used them and the Kraffts abandoned their idea quickly.

– Maurice began a phase where his styled himself after the world-renowned underwater film maker Jacques Cousteau, wearing his trademark red woolen cap and smoking a pipe.

– The Kraffts apparently found it cool to use pathetic looking inflatable seats.

– Increasingly they became filmmakers. From now on, we rarely ever see them doing science. They film others doing science. Katia becomes a sound recordist using state-of-the-art microphones and tape recorders. She also takes a role of photographer.

– The small southern island of Heimaey was surprised by a trench opening and spewing red hot lava. Maurice captures here an apocalypse that we have never seen before on film.

– They are no longer volcanologists, they're artists who carry us, the spectators, away in the realm of strange beauty. This is a vision that exists only in dreams. There is nothing more that should be said. We can only watch in awe.

– Volcanic eruption had obscured the sky, day turned into night. These traffic scenes were shot at midday. It took hours until some light returned. Dust was everywhere. And the thought creeps up to me that we are watching a scenario of the future. Could this pollution happen without a volcano just caused by human behavior?

– Hawaii, the Kraffts went there repeatedly. This is where there's permanent volcanic activity. This is where fire meets water. It appears to me, the Kraffts were shooting a whole film about creation in the making. They just did not have the time left to edit it.

– And looking into their archive, we discover images, not only of volcanoes but landscapes that nobody has ever filmed like them. Some of it has a quality of dreams, like in the biblical apocalypse, stones are raining from the sky. And rocks are giving up their assigned nature just to solidly sit there. They tumble. And plants and creatures and our whole planet seem to be somewhere in outer space.