This is a 2022 documentary also about the famed volcanologists which has only received a fraction of the attention that Fire of Love did, despite Requiem having come from none other than Werner Herzog:
While I know this wasn't the intent of Sara Dosa and Werner Herzog, this movie made for a swell companion piece to Fire of Love. Love has received far more attention despite the stature of who directed & narrated Requiem. There was genuine curiosity to compare & contrast, plus getting to see even more stunning footage of volcanoes was greatly appealing.
To echo what others have stated, while Love was naturally more romantic in presenting the relationship between Katia & Maurice Kraftt and their stature as volcanologists, Requiem was more focused on the footage that they shot during their expeditions & the metamorphosis of them from scientists to filmmakers who were performers in front of the camera-but Herzog did not proclaim this as an insult-for the purpose of education and later, warning the public and governments about the danger of what they study. Death is indeed a theme; besides seeing much more footage of them in Japan during the final days of their lives, the narration includes references to the how apocalyptic the eruptions were.
In different ways, it is probable that many people would think that the narration of Miranda July in Love and Werner's here fall solidly into the category of ASMR... to do some more contrasting, Love's score is full of dream-like ambient electronic music; there's literally a Brian Eno song present. Likewise, Requiem contains what may very well be music from Herzog's iPod, to steal a line. There's plenty of classical and operatic music, which by my stereotyping seems to fit. The Tejano song... heck, I have no trouble believing he'd listen to that genre either. Regardless, those soundtracks are appropriate for the respective films.
I believe both documentaries are worthy of viewing, not just for the treat of all the footage they shot, but also for what seemed like a more complete picture of Katia & Maurice Krafft as a couple, scientists, celebrities, and advocates. Next month via the Criterion Channel will be my first time viewing another Herzog documentary in more than 15 years; in addition, there likely are a few who would also be curious in my reviewing one of his narrative films, as that hasn't happened on Letterboxd as of yet.
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