{"id":509441,"date":"2026-05-29T22:59:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T22:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/509441\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T22:59:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T22:59:23","slug":"erupcja-lets-us-know-who-the-real-charli-xcx-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/509441\/","title":{"rendered":"Erupcja lets us know who the real Charli xcx is"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thinking about casting the world\u2019s biggest pop star in your microbudget indie? Four days before shooting Erupcja in Warsaw, Pete Ohs discovered that Charli xcx<\/a> would have to leave early for a Converse commercial in London. As Erucpja, a film that could alternatively be called volcano, so confusing, was meant to be shot chronologically, the story was radically reworked on the spot. Still, the singer\u2019s presence means Erucpja will have more viewers than Ohs\u2019s previous five films combined.<\/p>\n

However, Ohs, who\u2019s shot five films in five years, thrives on spontaneity. As per his process, the director writes the scenes with his actors the night before, or on the morning, they\u2019re shot. Before principal photography, only the story\u2019s first half is sketched out; the second half is then constructed once the first half is filmed. It\u2019s why Erupcja credits its screenplay to Ohs and its four main actors: Charli xcx, Lena G\u00f3ra, Will Madden, and Jeremy O. Harris<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In May 2024, a month before Brat came out, Ohs was introduced to Charli xcx by their mutual friend, Jeremy O. Harris, at a New York bar. Learning about Ohs\u2019s improvisational methods, the singer agreed to shoot Erupcja three months later in Poland despite \u2013 or because of \u2013 the absence of a script. All she knew was that the storyline would thematically involve female friendship and volcanoes. \u201cCharli had a lot going on with brat summer,\u201d Ohs tells me over Zoom from New York. \u201cIt felt bad to be losing our actress early to a Converse ad. But it was also an opportunity to do something different with the narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s because I\u2019ve thrown the question at him, or if he\u2019s being genuine, Ohs explains how brat summer infiltrated Erupcja. \u201cThe brat phenomenon was also a volcanic eruption,\u201d says the softly spoken, 43-year-old American director. \u201cMaybe subconsciously, we made a film that\u2019s also part of that conversation. Is being brat cool? Does being brat hurt other people? Should brats apologise sometimes? Maybe!\u201d He laughs at his answer. \u201cWhat excites me is that it wasn\u2019t calculated. It\u2019s just artists being present, responding to the moment\u201d \u2013 he gives a knowing look after the accidental wordplay \u2013 \u201cand making something relevant to what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like The Moment, a mockumentary about Charli xcx escaping to a European city amidst brat summer, Erupcja stars the singer as a grounded alternative to her pop star persona. In Warsaw, Bethany (Charli xcx) has arrived with her boyfriend, Rob (Madden, a doppelganger for Charli\u2019s IRL husband George Daniel), for a romantic getaway. Whereas Rob secretly wishes to propose during the vacation, Bethany prefers to party with an old friend, Nel (G\u00f3ra), a local with her own relationship strife. The low-key hangout-drama then reveals that Bethany and Nel carry a superstition: whenever they meet, a nearby volcano tends to erupt.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Bethany possesses more chemistry with Nel than Rob, and Erupcja proceeds to showcase Bethany and Nel as the story\u2019s most magnetic duo. Elsewhere, a highlight is Agata Trzebuchowska as Nel\u2019s girlfriend, Ula, marking her first significant acting role since Ida. Ultimately, though, Ohs knows what viewers want to watch: the film is essentially Charli xcx having an existential breakdown in the streets of Warsaw. (A tearful monologue from Bethany proves that the singer can actually act.)<\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"ERUPCJA_Feb18_24\"Erupcja<\/p>\n

\u201cI was aware of the song [\u2018girl, so confusing\u2019] and the Lorde remix,\u201d says Ohs. \u201cCharli was in the middle of finishing the masters of the remix album during the shoot. Lena and Charli were hanging out and discovering their characters. They shared anecdotes, ideas, and how it reminded them of past relationships they\u2019d had. How I make movies is that, if it was a different set of people, it would be a different movie. Because it\u2019s Charli and Lena, they\u2019re bringing what they\u2019re bringing, and we end up making a movie about fraught female relationships. What the process asks is for everybody to be pretty vulnerable, and to bring themselves to the project.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s freewheeling charm is reflected by its production. Doubling as the cinematographer, Ohs writes the screenplay on his iPhone\u2019s Notes app and sends scenes to the cast through a group chat. Scenes tend to be written when the cast sit down for meals \u2013 when Bethany and Rob have leftovers at a pizza restaurant, it\u2019s simply what Charli xcx and Madden were eating before the cameras were rolling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI make movies by removing pressure,\u201d says Ohs. \u201cWriting on the Notes app means never having to face a big, blank, white page. It updates collaboratively. If the actors want to make changes, they can.\u201d Do ideas come differently if you bash out an entire screenplay on your phone? \u201cI like to work intuitively. Maybe that\u2019s a problem: we\u2019re all trained to feel good picking up our phone and typing. But it feels so natural. The smallness allows me to zone in on the scene I\u2019m trying to write.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cTo make a movie where you\u2019re jumping off a cliff into the unknown, and you don\u2019t know where the story is going to go \u2013 that\u2019s similar to how life is lived\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While Ohs\u2019s method sounds like he\u2019d produce the kind of unscripted dramedies churned out by the Duplass brothers and Greta Gerwig in the mumblecore movement, his influences are more akin to European arthouse cinema: he namechecks Pasolini, Antonioni, and Italian neorealism. In the style of early Godard, Erupcja has a dryly witty, third-person narrator. \u201cI love the spirit of the mumblecore movement, which is friends making things together,\u201d says Ohs. \u201cBut my films are more aesthetically drawn to the French New Wave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohs has tried the traditional method of writing a script, finding financing, and then shooting it, with 2017\u2019s Everything Beautiful Is Far Away. Made for $200,000, it failed to raise much attention; Ohs has previously questioned whether it was worth seven years\u2019 worth of investment. He\u2019s now set upon the method that produced Erupcja: crucially, it always starts with a geographical location, not a person or plot. In the next year, he plans to shoot two movies (\u201ctwo different places, ready to go\u201d) with the same improvised techniques, albeit on a larger scale. \u201cThe challenge is to engage with a bigger framework,\u201d he says. \u201cDoes the method hold or crumble?\u201d<\/p>\n

The obvious comparison is with early Wim Wenders. In his golden streak of films like Paris, Texas and Alice in the Cities, Wenders would also pick locations and discover the film as he went along. \u201cThe way you make a movie will directly inform how that movie feels,\u201d says Ohs. \u201cMarvel movies feel the way they do because of the process they use. To make a movie where you\u2019re jumping off a cliff into the unknown, and you don\u2019t know where the story is going to go \u2013 that\u2019s similar to how life is lived. That\u2019s why Wim Wenders\u2019s films feel the way they do. Not every movie can, or should, be made that way. But it results in a really specific, special feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erupcja is out in UK cinemas on June 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thinking about casting the world\u2019s biggest pop star in your microbudget indie? Four days before shooting Erupcja in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[264],"tags":[595,601,600,602,603,604,605,606,18,117,596,597,598,599,19,17,337],"class_list":["post-509441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-art","tag-dazed","tag-dazed-confused","tag-dazed-confused-magazine","tag-dazed-and-confused","tag-dazed-and-confused-magazine","tag-dazedconfused","tag-dazeddigital","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-fashion","tag-film","tag-ideas","tag-ideas-sharing-network","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116660349873267566","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}