Erupcja <\/p>\n
\ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d8 \ue9d7 <\/p>\n
Director: Pete Ohs <\/p>\n
Cert: 12A<\/p>\n
Genre: Drama<\/p>\n
Starring: Charli XCX, Lena G\u00f3ra, Will Madden<\/p>\n
Running Time: 1 hr 12 mins<\/p>\n
Few pop stars have straddled mainstream domination and experimental tendencies quite like Charli XCX<\/a>. From the toe-tappers Boom Clap and I Love It through the abrasive, futuristic bops of Pop 2 to the internet-cultivated self-awareness of Brat, she continually reshapes her sound.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, her blossoming sideline in film is equally varied. Set over a long weekend in Warsaw, the slight, appealing romantic drama Erupcja follows three people caught between the lives they have fashioned and the ones they imagine they might still reclaim.<\/p>\n Charli XCX, aka Charlotte Aitchison, plays Bethany, a Londoner visiting Poland<\/a> with her boyfriend, Rob (Will Madden). His carefully composed itinerary for museums, restaurants, sightseeing and a marriage proposal quickly implodes. Rob imagines the holiday as a first step towards a shared future. But Bethany\u2019s mind is elsewhere \u2013 specifically, with Nel (Lena G\u00f3ra), a florist and old friend whose appearance reawakens an unresolved romantic connection.<\/p>\n The emerging American director Pete Ohs, working from a collaboratively developed script, allows the story to drift around Warsaw\u2019s underground art scene. A romantic mythology that Nel and Bethany have invented, noting volcanic eruptions coincide with their encounters, doubles as an illustration of lives periodically destabilised by buried feelings.<\/p>\n The film\u2019s greatest asset is its freewheeling atmosphere. Shot, edited and directed by Ohs, Erupcja unfolds through fragments, chance encounters, wanderings and passing moods. Jacek Zubiel\u2019s cryptic Polish-language voiceover echoes the folksy ruminations of Sam Elliott in The Big Lebowski, while bursts of music and saturated colour cast a dreamy spell.<\/p>\n