Peter Ohs’ Erupcja could be considered a spiritual film, but not in the conventional sense. Towards the end of the film, one of its characters, when trying to explain the stubborn dynamic between its two protagonists, says, “It’s a way to make sense of the world when you’re a little kid. Maybe because [you] need therapy. Maybe because [you] don’t have religion. None of us do!” Bethany (Charli XCX) and Nel (Lena Góra) have sustained a sixteen-year friendship built solely on a blind faith in the celestial connection they claim to share. Every time they meet, somewhere in the world, a volcano erupts — as does something in their lives. With their uncertain paths both romantically and professionally, their connection is a way to attain a sense of control, to spot patterns and logic in a messy world.
It is human to want answers, as much as it is human to question what is presented to us as the truth, discard it, and find (or create) our own. In that way, Bethany and Nel’s creation of their own belief system mirrors how Erupcja was made. With each project, a goal of Ohs is to discover elements of the traditional filmmaking process that he can rescind. This approach led him to start the production of his latest film with a loose outline, basic equipment, and a skeleton crew, heavily collaborating with his cast, who are also credited as producers and writers. It’s not hard to infer why. For a few decades now, independent filmmaking of this level has existed as a response to an industry that, in search of its own certainties, increasingly creates obstacles for artists to tell their stories. And though, for some, micro-budgets are a path towards breaking into Hollywood, for others, as Ohs, they’re a destination that allows them to take risks without breaking promises, to access a freedom that is easily identifiable in Erupcja’s final cut.
With less money to lose, the approach allows these kinds of films to find their own audience, and for that audience to be enough. In the case of Erupcja, its audience can be expected to pay as much attention to the film as the filmmaking process, to feel inspired by its effortlessness, and to notice its stylistic choices. Maybe especially the latter, because before we’re introduced to characters, or even the city of Warsaw, Erupcja introduces us to its style. With a 4:3 aspect ratio, we’re confronted with translucent color blocks over moving images of the Polish city. These blocks of color (probably inspired by one of their protagonists’ pop culture explosion in the same year of this film’s production) come back before almost every scene, announcing a mood before we experience it. Characters are introduced through close-ups of their possessions, and an omniscient and nonchalant narrator guides us through the instinctive editing. But in spite of the confident an audiovisual language, the story suffers from this improvised way of crafting a narrative, and the audience that so values the form might find itself dissatisfied with the half-developed relationships and somewhat rushed resolutions.
Every time they meet, a volcano erupts. And that should be evidence of how special their friendship is. But in Bethany’s own life, the world doesn’t shake. Visiting Warsaw for the fifth time, but for the first time with Rob (Will Madden), Bethany has come to the one place she can stop her long-term boyfriend from proposing. Meanwhile, Nel is dispassionate about the flower shop she runs, and has just been presented with the opportunity to resume a romance. Soon enough, all gets derailed as Bethany shows up outside of Nel’s building, and, despite Nel’s evident resentment caused by Bethany’s failure to keep in touch, a wild night of partying, 365 style, ensues. More than halfway through, however, we don’t really know what their story is. We know Bethany didn’t grow up in Poland, and that she now lives in London, so we end up wondering when the intensity of their relationship was born. By the time we learn that they’ve only seen each other during Bethany’s very sporadic visits, and even though they claim to cause a volcano to erupt every time this happens, it’s hard to be convinced by the connection with no real insight into pivotal events in their past and no sense of mutual attunement in their present. For a story that hinges on the character’s belief in their transcendental bond, not only do we not believe — or root — for them, but it’s hard to believe they even do.
And maybe that’s somewhat intentional. Because, in the end, their connection isn’t real, and volcanoes erupting around them keep doing so (once every week) when they’re apart. Though that revelation would have been more impactful if we were invested in the main characters’ bond as much as they claimed to be, it does present us with the very prescient need in young and young-adult generations to find something somewhat verifiable to believe in and to count on during such unpredictable times.
Rating 3 out of 5 stars.
In a time when religious devotion is in decline, and our more concrete institutions have broken our trust, the need for the spiritual persists. We all want to go through the world with the safety net of knowing that someone sees us, knows us, and has the answers to the questions we ask about ourselves. Sometimes we find it, sometimes we imagine we have, we ignore that we share just as much with almost everyone else in our vicinity, and that helps us get by for a while. Sometimes, like Nel, we outgrow the need for the illusion of certainty, and we accept the predictability that less volcanic connections can offer. So it’s not just the style, but the honesty in exploring this idea, that still makes Erupcja compelling. By examining their characters’ search for answers, Ohs and his collaborators end up providing some for their anxious contemporaries by reminding us that, amongst the uncertainty, art can always offer some answers.
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