On 3 June 1991, the Mount Unzen volcano in southern Japan erupted catastrophically, killing 43 people, among them the volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft, a married couple who had become legendary for their passionate devotion to the study of volcanos; their daredevil films, photographs and books documented their breathtakingly dangerous closeup study of volcanoes in mid-flow. I first heard of them from Werner Herzog’s film Into the Inferno.
But where Herzog’s film has something dispassionate, almost fatalistic in its awe in the face of the volcano’s terrifying power, this film looks for something romantic, celebrating or consecrating the myth of the Kraffts: they loved each other, they loved volcanoes and it all came together on that terrible day. Maurice in fact often casually talked about the probability of dying in a volcano eruption – although the film shows him talking about it happening to him, not to both of them together. Did they really, in their hearts, think that it could happen? Or did their lifelong acclimatisation to danger inoculate them against that thought?
