“With him, the earth doesn’t shake.”
Charli xcx makes (effectively) her big screen debut in Erupcja, a low-key romance from American director Pete Ohs that translates from Polish as “eruption.” She plays a young British woman named Bethany on a vacation in Warsaw with her bore of a boyfriend Rob (Will Madden) who brought an engagement ring on the trip. Bethany has been to Poland before—several times, actually—and every time she goes to see her Polish ex-flame Nel (Lena Góra), a volcano erupts. This time, the eruption comes from the Italian Mount Etna.
Much like in the films of Wong Kar-wai, to whom Ohs will inevitably be compared, the characters meander the city with emotional aims more than plot-driven ones. Ohs credits four of the acting talents as co-writers: Jeremy O. Harris (who plays a young American artist conspicuously named Claude), Charli xcx, Lena Góra, and Will Madden. Psychogeographers have a word that pins the spirit of Erupcja’s wandering: dérive, coming from the French word “to drift” and in reference to urban landscapes. In psychogeography, there is an anti-capitalist implication to the practice by making the walker more aware of the effects of the (capitalist) landscape and bypassing boredom. Bethany also uses dérive to disarm boredom. For her, the boredom comes in the shape of a six-foot-tall bald man who loves her.
“With him, the earth doesn’t shake,” she confesses to Nel.
Rob treats her well and says all the right things, but that doesn’t make him any less unbearable. Most of their conversation is small talk and therapeutic check-ins. They have no spark. And he tries his best to force memories, which is an effort that will always end fruitlessly.
Warsaw is not typically thought of as a city of romance. Every building has been graffitied, the cinderblock buildings imposing, and the public transit screams just like the MBTA’s Green Line. Rob didn’t think of it that way either: he intended to propose in Paris, but his future-fiancée suggested the Polish capital instead. “Not Krawkow?” as one character confusingly protests. Ohs’s handheld cinematography does give it a romantic touch, though. The warm colors and curious kineticism make the Phoenix City a city of great loves. And the Academy aspect ratio, in turn, boxes in the big emotions Bethany struggles to express.
Like the solo color square paintings in a modern art museum, Ohs, who also edited the film, cuts to monochromatic blocks where only the yellow subtitles may occasionally break through. Sometimes they may imply sex, other times they simply diffuse the drama with their pause. It feels demeaning to say Ohs uses them like a Pinterest moodboard, but that is exactly what’s going on.
Also like Wong Kar-wai’s great In the Mood for Love, which uses a related spontaneous and improvisational style, the two leads never consummate their relationship on screen. It may be implied more here than in Wong’s film—volcanic eruptions certainly make a great metaphor for orgasms—but they never even kiss on screen. Their charge doesn’t need it. Any actual intimacy may even risk depleting their powerful connection. The score from Isabella Summers and Charles Watson also reiterates the same music cues relentlessly just like Michael Galasso’s famous romantic cue in the Hong Kong classic.
Erupcja
2025
dir. Pete Ohs
71 min.
Screened as part of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival
