Some documentary subjects come with their metaphors baked right in. Such is the case for Sara Dosa's film, about a legendary pair of volcanologists -- the married couple Katia and Maurice Krafft -- whose scientific research into volcanos, much of which saw them nestling down into the craters of seething, still active mountains, guided the next generation of scientists. Their devotion to their science was so complete, volcanoes became the one absorbing passion in their lives, besides each other.
Through much archival imagery the Kraffts shot themselves (a further joy for documentarians: they were obsessive recorders of their own expeditions via notes, photos, and their own films), Dosa weaves the story of their relationships -- both to their beloved volcanoes (Maurice refers to them more than once as "children") and to each other -- against the backdrop of the dozens of eruptions the pair crisscrossed the globe to explore.
What's extraordinary about their relationship is the fact that they found each other in the first place -- on a blind date, as it happens -- and, as with all soulmate stories, the remarkable nature of their bond, which proves to the outside world just how these things are meant to go. For them, the act of clarifying their shared lives together in such a way so as to reduce all outside distractions was the only thing that made sense. In that, it's possible to admire their ability to simplify, even as we instinctively recoil from the tremendous risks they took in the process.
That they were ultimately consumed by such an eruption -- in Japan, in 1991 -- is almost beside the point, and anyway, there are many times one or the other will reference how much they would rather do this incredibly dangerous research, even if they die young, than staying in their office and living to be senile ("If he's going to die," Katia tells us, "I'd rather be with him.")
They clearly had made their decision, and seemed more than happy with it -- in fact, one fundamental observation from all the footage Dosa unearths is the unerring exuberance and joy the pair felt in the presence of active lava explosions. In one scene, dressed in reflective metal suits that make them look like a pair of Berlin DJs in the aughts, in front of a cascading wall of fiery lava plumes, they are literally dancing together, in the face of the Earth's molten magma core.