The visually entrancing volcano documentary "Fire of Love" chronicles a magnificent obsession and might even make that obsession your own. It didn't have to work terribly hard in my case. I was already a budding volcanophile when I decided, at age 8, that I'd never seen anything more beautiful than the geysers of lava raining down on Kilauea, a hyperactive Hawaiian monster that I soon declared my favorite volcano in the world. (It was one of several contenders.) I wasn't much older when I learned that one of Kilauea's longest recorded eruptions actually started the day I was born, one of those funny coincidences that felt eerily prophetic at the time.
My 8-year-old self, no less than my present-day one, would have thrilled to the majestic images in "Fire of Love," which deserve to be seen on the biggest screen possible. (The movie is opening in theaters this week; it'll be available on Disney+ later this year.) The images were filmed by fearless French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who pursued their shared passion to the ends (or at least the edges) of the Earth, where the crust fissures and rock slides against molten rock.
Katia, a geochemist, and Maurice, a geologist, met as students in 1966, married in 1970 and spent the rest of their lives visiting active volcanoes all over the world, marching right up to flowing lava rivers and smoking craters and filming what they saw.
