The Fire Within vs. Fire of Love: Cinema is a Form of Phenomenology

The documentary "Fire of Love," directed by Sara Dosa, received acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Best Editing award in the U.S. Documentary Competition category. The film chronicles the lives of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who devoted themselves to studying and closely interacting with over a hundred volcanoes. Notably, legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog also released a volcano-themed documentary titled "The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft" in the same year, featuring the Krafft couple as central figures. While both Dosa and Herzog edited extensive footage shot by the Kraffts, their films differ significantly in style and content.

Herzog has always had a distinct focus, evident since the beginning of his career, on the mysterious and powerful forces of nature that can swiftly consume individuals. For example, "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972) portrays how indigenous people in South America effortlessly defeat a group of Western colonizers searching for the "Land of Gold" amidst tropical rainforests. Here, the natives are rarely seen, emphasizing that what "civilization" must confront is not specific "barbarism" but the incomprehensible and dangerous nature itself. Similarly, "Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night / Nosferatu the Vampyre" (1979) depicts an unstoppable plague, illustrating a vast natural force capable of overwhelming everything. Herzog's version polished away the horror veneer from the original silent film "Nosferatu."

Werner Herzog is also extremely skilled at depicting and recording the "overmen" in the human world in Nietzsche's sense. They have strong free will, enjoy being close to or even challenging nature, and of course, most of them fail, with only a few achieving a draw with nature. In this process, he inevitably touches on issues of colonialism, but fundamentally, he pays less attention to institutional issues and clashes between civilizations, focusing instead on depicting human will itself and its struggle with nature. For example, the main character of "Fitzcarraldo" (1982) is a madman named Fitzcarraldo who wants to transport an steamship over a mountain range. However, he conquered the mountain but could not conquer the river, ultimately failing in every sense. One of the closest humans to "success" in Werner Herzog's works is perhaps in another documentary called "Wings of Hope" (1999), where he filmed a female biologist who miraculously survived a plane crash. He himself almost boarded that same plane decades ago, and the location of the plane crash was only a few kilometres away from the location where he filmed "Aguirre, the Wrath of God." Werner Herzog created a fateful and interesting correspondence through his body of work: fictional characters are drowned by the jungle, while real people miraculously survive in the rainforest.

"The Fire Within" fits well within Werner Herzog's broader body of work exploring the relationship between humans and nature. As seen in his previous films, the characters in this film are overwhelmed by the power of nature, unable to escape its grip. The Krafft couple's story is reminiscent of another documentary Herzog made nearly 20 years ago, "Grizzly Man," where the protagonist irrationally returns to live among grizzly bears during mating season, meeting a tragic fate in the wilderness. There are striking similarities between "Volcanoman" and "Grizzly Man," almost suggesting an inevitable destiny that Herzog may not have consciously chosen but was perhaps unconsciously drawn to. To evoke a sense of tragic destiny, Herzog incorporates a lot of classical religious music, especially requiems, and excerpts from Wagner's operas in his editing.

Sara Dosa's approach is quite different. If "The Fire Within" starts from the extremely disparate power dynamics between humans and nature, then "Fire of Love" focuses entirely on the Krafft couple. From the beginning, the film tells the story of how they came together because of their shared love for volcanoes, dedicating a lot of screen time to showcasing the personalities of the two, especially Maurice Krafft: humorous, uninhibited, and an action-oriented adventurer. Sara Dosa and her writers give these volcanologists a lot of "personality" and "meaning" that mainstream American documentaries often lack. This imbuing actually comes not from any volcanic footage shot by the Kraffts themselves, but from the creators' interpretation of their relationship. Sara Dosa even created a separate animated segment accompanied by voiceover narration: "Across humanity’s 2 million years, two humans are born in the same place, at the same time, and they love the same thing and that love moved us closer to the earth.”

Interestingly, Werner Herzog doesn't seem to think it's that simple. At least not in the beginning of "The Fire Within." He seems to intentionally emphasize the tension between the couple during their trip to Mount Unzen in Japan, as they can't agree on whether or not to visit another volcano. This voiceover is not just a matter of documentary creators restoring the truth out of morality. More importantly, it's because Katia's compromise stops their relationship from deteriorating further, but fatefully leads them to their tragic end, bringing us back to Werner's consistent expression throughout his career. It seems that based on this, Werner doesn't delve too much into their relationship, especially refusing to give too much romantic imagination to their marriage. For him, what brought them together was their absolute curiosity and awe towards nature, and later on, the humanitarian stance built upon it. Love is not dispensable, but it clearly takes a subordinate position.

In essence, the fundamental difference in thinking between Sara Dosa and Werner Herzog may have something to do with production. One was funded by National Geographic, while the other was filmed for personal interest and authorship. Therefore, the former needs to be more of an educational documentary for television, providing in-depth explanations of the types of volcanoes, their journey, and their spiritual path, allowing the audience to develop a dual love for both humans and nature. The latter almost completely rejects scientific discourse and chooses to directly intervene in the imagery, letting the footage shot by Krafft couple speak for themselves, allowing the audience to perceive this so-called "love" through their eyes. Of course, Werner Herzog doesn't show us a mess of materials without guidance. Instead, he outlines the general contours of their lives with the most concise strokes, and then uses his own experiences traveling across seven continents as a basis to showcase Krafft couple's unparalleled originality. If there is a core statement in "The Fire Within," it must be: "We have nothing to say, we can only gaze at these images with awe."

Differences in creative philosophy inevitably manifest as differences in the way two directors construct their images: the former centers around characters, while the latter centers around nature; the former relies on fast editing to strive for liveliness, humor, and watchability, while the latter chooses to minimize interference with the audience's gaze. Ultimately, Sara Dosa aims to move us with their relationship and dedication to science, and she achieves this goal well. Werner Herzog anchors himself in magma and dust, understanding the powerful force inherent in the images produced by the Krafft couple, while also embodying André Bazin's assertion that cinema is a form of phenomenology.

"The Fire Within" is not the first time Werner Herzog has directed a film about volcanoes. In 2016, he released the documentary "Into the Inferno," where he followed himself as he visited famous active volcanoes. The Krafft couple also appeared in this film. Moreover, Werner Herzog's courage is no less than that of any volcanologist. As early as the 1977 documentary "La Soufrière," he and his team went deep into almost empty French Guadeloupe, where they met an old man who seemed fearless and had a calm inner peace - another "overmen." It should be said that all such "overmen" are Werner Herzog's confidants, and only they can see the strange creations that ordinary people cannot imagine. The Krafft couple are the latest representatives of such extraordinary people we have seen. Through their eyes, Werner Herzog was able to enter a deeper purgatory than hell, where he could capture images that only pure and clean eyes could perceive.

Perhaps in this sense, Werner Herzog's best films (both fiction and documentary) are often "sci-fi," even though most of them may lack the quality of scientific fantasy. His sci-fi nature lies in the perfect combination of wonders and imagination: as individuals so ordinary in the world, fixed in trivial lives, we cannot help but be amazed by the extraordinary scenery under the sea ice described by him as an "underwater church" in "Encounters at the End of the World" (2007), and cannot help but be moved by the round balloon floating above the rainforest in "The White Diamond" (2004), which seems to have come from outer space. Similarly, before "2001: A Space Odyssey," people would never have imagined any connection between apemen breaking bones and deep space spacecraft until they were edited together by Kubrick, forming a grand human history montage spanning millions of years. What Werner Herzog and Kubrick share is the imagination to combine images and scenes, the extraordinary and genius poeticity of film creators. In the end, they are both poets.

For him, the couple are not only volcanologists, but also poets, artists, and filmmakers. All he needs to do is to let people see their unfinished business, and not let these magnificent, even full of faith power natural landscapes be buried in the dust of history. This is his way of showing respect: for Krafft couple, and for nature itself.