Erupcja

How I'm Feeling Now: The Movie.

“Warsaw is the new Berlin” — at least, that’s the feeling I had while watching Erupcja by Pete Ohs, which was originally supposed to be titled Warsaw, Poland.

The film follows Nel, who lives in Warsaw, Poland, and leads a rather tense life running a flower shop she inherited from her mother. At some point, her childhood friend Bethany arrives in the city with her boyfriend, who is planning to propose to her. They haven’t spoken in years, but Bethany finds Nell because she misses the kind of chaos they create when they’re together — and their reunion quickly turns into an erupting volcano.

Let’s make one thing clear from the start: this is probably the most amateur film I’ve seen this year. It’s very obviously low-budget, made purely out of passion, shot entirely on location with regular people around — many of whom, I’m pretty sure, didn’t even know they were part of a film. And as someone who lives in Warsaw, Poland, it was actually quite funny to watch and recognize places I walk past every day on my way to work. It made me wonder what it feels like for people living in cities like New York, Los Angeles, or London, constantly seeing their streets on screen — because I’m definitely not used to watching Charli xcx in front of shops where I buy water.

The story itself feels very alive and immediate — you can tell it was being written during filming. And for a reason: all four main actors are credited as writers. A lot of the film is built on improvisation, with many awkward, natural, everyday moments. This makes it very easy to watch — it just flows like a river. At the same time, because it runs just a bit over an hour, the story feels extremely compact, small, and somewhat constrained. That works both ways: you get a short, accessible piece, but one that never feels fully developed.

At its core, the story, while at times quite clumsy, does a solid job portraying a type of person most of you probably know. That chaotic, bright firecracker who bursts into your life and turns everything upside down — yet somehow makes it feel like the most exciting adventure, something that completely takes your breath away. On top of that, the emotional tension is paired with a fairly strong erotic pull between Nel and Bethany, showing how people like this can be both incredibly beautiful and completely destructive at the same time.

And the older you get, the more you realize that these kinds of explosions don’t last forever. At some point, you have to put out your volcano and try to move on to something more stable and understandable. Because volcanoes do kill people.

Charli xcx fits perfectly into the role of Bethany and feels incredibly natural on screen. She really carries the role, which is heavily centered around her, and as essentially the only real superstar in the film, she looks very organic in this environment. Lena Góra also does a strong job, bringing presence to her role, while Will Madden plays Bethany’s extremely boring and predictable boyfriend exactly as needed. Everyone else appearing on screen looks decent as well.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure who this film is for or what its audience is supposed to be. What I do know is that it works as a pretty nice piece of promotion for my favorite city, Warsaw, and as a story that, while slightly detached from reality in its storytelling, still carries a very real emotional core. It might not resonate with everyone, but its occasionally unserious tone — especially with a somewhat amusingly pretentious narrator — frames it more as performative dramatism rather than a deep, heavy drama.

In the end, whoever happens to discover this film is unlikely to be disappointed. The bigger question is whether anyone will actually find it.

6.5/10

Thanks to 1-2 Special for the screener. Erupcja hits US cinemas from April 17 and opens in Polish cinemas from May 22.