It’s no coincidence that Bethany (Charli xcx) and Rob (Will Madden) find themselves in Warsaw. While an obvious fact—she recommended the Polish city as an alternative destination when he suggested Paris—it’s also a familiar escape hatch now that things have grown serious. Because Bethany senses a proposal on the horizon. She’s lived with Rob for a year in London and he’s started hinting about a surprise for his “love.” It’s time to pull the ripcord.
The opposite is true for Nel (Lena Góra). Stuck in a rut of routine running her flower shop and hanging with friends, the excitement on her face when her sister (Maja Michnacka’s Maja) says she’s just seen Ula (Agata Trzebuchowska) at the bakery is palpable. She’s desperate to see her again. The time away has been unbearable and it appears as if nothing will prevent their reunion once Ula stops by to plan a future date. The news alert on Nel’s phone begs to differ.
Birthing an idea from a chance encounter with a man who relayed how he was once stranded in Warsaw for a month due to the volcanic ash of an erupted volcano in Iceland, director Pete Ohs centers his fateful romantic timebomb around that exact premise. More than just a reason to keep Bethany and Rob in Warsaw longer than planned, however, the potential of this natural disaster is actually the whole reason they’ve traveled there at all. She’s hoping for it.
Why? Because eruptions are a staple in Bethany and Nel’s decade-long friendship. The former jokes that the latter is the only person who ever “makes the ground shake” when they’re together, and Ohs reveals as much by shaking the camera as the two get closer in proximity. So rather than just breaking it off with Rob, Bethany bets on rekindling the spark of reckless abandon born from a night with Nel on the town. Make it so Rob wants to break up with her.
I enjoy the notion that Ohs made Erupcja to satisfy an urge to play with what he calls one of his “favorite genres.” While I would argue labeling “foreign film” as a “genre” is about as American an insult to the cultural significance of the cinematic medium in countries that don’t speak English as their first language as you can get, I won’t deny his enthusiasm to work in a sandbox with different rules than his own. What he really sought was to make a French New Wave homage.
He thus follows these three characters with an omniscient lens as Jacek Zubiel narrates their inner thoughts and contextualizes their motives between onscreen conversations. Each segment is separated by a colored screen as the score continues, ushering in a new uncertainty as to where each might be waking up and with whom (if anyone). The days expire, emotions heighten, and we eventually discover why we met Nel first.
She’s the real focal point. She’s the one who has made a life in Poland with the dream of spending it with Ula. Bethany is a grenade thrown into the promise of that happiness—a last remnant of the recklessness and irresponsibility of youth. Because she is fun and the prospect of blowing up everything Nel worked to build for another consequence-free adventure is tempting. What’s different this time, however, is that she doesn’t want to start from zero again.
Whereas Bethany needs Nel to help clean her relationship slate, Nel actually needs Bethany to go back home. Does she understand that fact now? Of course not. A volcano has erupted and the party is ready to begin. It’s quite the sobering realization when the inevitable result of this blowout has Nel feeling regret. That was never part of this deal. She should be as cool and unbothered by the fallout as her friend. Their priorities are no longer in sync.
That’s the power of love, right? When you find someone who makes you question your selfish desire to have fun at the expense of those you’ve led to believe they can rely on you, that initial rush of adrenaline dissolves into a pool of guilt. Nel has that in Ula. Rob has it in Bethany. And Bethany is still looking. Instead of doing so on her own terms, however, Bethany acts on impulse yet again to bring two people who love her down into the mud, too. She is the volcano.
Erupcja accordingly proves a wonderful, allegorical wake-up call. A manifestation of the pretentious dream-speak Claude (Jeremy O. Harris) spouts about his art. Because everything that happens here is kismet: Ula and Bethany both arriving in Warsaw at the same time; Bethany and Rob meeting Claude the day of his party attended by Nel; the simultaneous moment of epiphany for Rob and Nel to finally stop letting Bethany burn them to ash.
Thanks to Ohs’ penchant for creating an outline that the cast will co-write as they shoot in-sequence, we’re in and out of their lives in a flash. We have fun with the ladies (Charli and Lena have an easy rapport), suffer the disappointment of their significant others, and find solace in Nel and Rob’s (Madden’s quiet tumult is great) mutual desire to keep orbiting Bethany, despite the heat. Sometimes we become too mesmerized to remember to run.
Erupcja is now in limited release.