“Understanding is love’s other name.”
That quote is attributed to Thích Nhất Hạnh, an influential Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk and peace activist. Known as the “father of mindfulness,” Hanh died at the age of 95 in January of this year. The quote appears in documentary filmmaker Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love, an examination of the lives and work of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. At this moment, I can’t recall in what context the quote appears in the movie. I don’t remember if it’s spoken by either Katia or Maurice, if the film’s narrator – filmmaker and actor Miranda July – utters it during the film, or if it appears on screen in text form. I quickly jotted it down in my notes as I watched Fire of Love, but I failed to add an attribution.
The exact context of those words within the documentary isn’t important. At a broader level, the sentiment behind Hanh’s idea is a beautiful and apt thesis statement for everything Dosa explores in her picture. Understanding was at the heart of Katia and Maurice’s personal and professional lives together. It is what the pair were trying to achieve with the white-hot intensity of their decades-long study of volcanos.