Couple's final moments before being killed by volcano caught in haunting footage
A couple’s last days alive before being killed by a volcano were caught in a ‘haunting’ BBC documentary that has gone viral on social media.
A clip from the documentary has gone viral on X, with a viewer noting that they believe it is one of the greatest moments from a documentary ever.
The documentary was created by the iconic filmmaker Werner Herzog, who has done two different films documenting the life and death of the couple, Katie and Maurice Krafft.
The Kraffts were noted and popular volcanologists who were often the first on the scene of volcanic eruptions worldwide.
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Footage of their life’s work was the focus of Herzog’s The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft, a 2022 documentary which can be watched on the BBC for free.
The couple, who would regularly take footage of themselves standing just feet away from active volcano flows, were married for over 20 years prior to their deaths.
Katie and Maurice died in 1991 after Mount Unzen erupted in Japan, killing 43 people, including the couple.
Whilst the couple did film their final moments, the footage was destroyed by the volcanic flow, and both their bodies were so badly burnt that they were only identified by their personal effects.
A viewer of the Herzog documentary posted a scene from it on social media, calling it 'the most sublime scene in a nature documentary ever'.
They went on to quote this tweet, saying: “A double feature with this and Grizzly Man would go crazy.
“Both feature Werner Herzog narrating footage of people who died in pursuit of achieving greatness, but one is about someone Herzog despises and the other is about two people he deeply admires.”
Grizzly Man was another documentary by Herzog that followed Timothy Treadwell, an American conservationist and bear enthusiast who was ultimately killed by a bear.
Whilst Herzog has not said he despised Treadwell, he was far sceptical of his views on nature and believed he had underestimated nature.
The Kraffts however were very open about the fact they were willing to die in their pursuit of documenting volcanoes, with Maurice saying: “
Unlike Katie and Maurice, audio footage does exist of Timothy’s death, however Herzog only puts footage in Grizzly Man of him listening to it before informing Treadwell’s mother to never listen to it and destroy the footage.
One fan on X said they had done this exact double feature, saying: “Herzog can always find some of the most profound way to present the world through such grim yet facinating lens.”
Another fan replied to the original tweet saying: “Lava rivers have got to be one of the single most terrifyingly awe-inspiring sights on earth. So beautiful and so powerful all at once.”
Speaking about the Kraffts, Werner Herzog spoke of his admiration for them as not just volcanologists but filmmakers, saying: “The Kraffts have given us phenomenal footage – we have never seen anything of such beauty, intensity and danger.
“They spoke about this in public, saying that 98 per cent of all Frenchmen die in their beds. They did not want that.
“They were consumed by a pyroclastic flow of 850 degrees Fahrenheit coming at them like an avalanche of heated gases, searing flames and then they were gone. It’s a decision they made.
“They wanted to die like this – not that they had an ambition to die, I’m certain.”
The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft is available to steram on BBC iPlayer now.
Topics: Viral, BBC, TV and Film, Film, Documentaries
Michael Slavin