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 begin 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. 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, 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 to lose, the approach allows these kinds of films to find their own audience, and for that audience to be enough. Erupcja‘s audience can be expected to pay as much attention to the film as to 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 (probably inspired by one of their protagonists’ pop culture explosion in the same year of this film’s production), which 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 despite the confident 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 rushed resolutions.
Every time they meet, a volcano erupts. 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 a wild night of partying, 365 style, ensues. More than halfway through, however, we don’t really know what their story is, and by the time we confirm they’ve never spent more time together than during Bethany’s very sporadic and short visits, no claim to have caused volcanoes to erupt can convince us of their connection. For a story that hinges on its characters’ belief in their transcendental bond, the main problem is not that we do not believe — or root — for them, but that it’s hard to believe they 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’ relationship as much as they claimed to be, it does present us with the prescient need in young and young-adult generations to find something verifiable and explainable to believe in and count on during such unpredictable times.
Rating 3 out of 5 stars.
In a time when religious devotion is in decline and brick-and-mortar 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, 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. It’s not just the style, but the honesty in exploring this idea, that still makes Erupcja compelling. Bethany and Nel might not have found the answers they were searching for, but by exploring their own way of filmmaking, Ohs and his collaborators certainly found some.
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