She just wanna drive to the airport, the airport, the airport. Charli xcx shot “Erupcja” in Poland in the middle of Brat Summer.
“I met her days before ‘Brat’ was released. She knew good things were coming, but I don’t think she knew how good it was going to be. Even at that point, she was expressing interest in acting,” says director Pete Ohs.
“Erupcja” marks her first lead role, played alongside Lena Góra. Jeremy O. Harris and Agata Trzebuchowska also star.
“I guess she’s in a transitional period,” he adds.
“It was new to her, but she was seeking out experiences and opportunities to learn and to grow, which was a really cool energy to receive. The way I approach filmmaking has to do with experimentation and fun. We try things and take risks with very little at stake, which was exactly what she needed to hear at this stage of her acting career.”
When the Brat Summer happened, a cultural phenomenon that ultimately won her three Grammy Awards, Ohs started to wonder: “Are we still going to do this movie?”
“I looked at her website: it said the world tour was starting in September, and she told me she was going to be free in August. I messaged her and she said: ‘I’ll be there.’ It was a miracle, really.”
Making the film in Poland was part of the appeal, he says. In the story, Bethany (Charli xcx) and her boyfriend Rob (Will Madden) head to Warsaw. Following the eruption of a volcano they need to stay longer. Rob wants to propose, but Bethany runs away with an old friend Nel (Góra).
“If I had done the same pitch and said we were going to shoot in L.A., it would be less interesting to her amongst the chaos that was this huge career milestone. The fact that she took 10 days off to come to Poland in the middle of it all is really wild, but also very cool.”
Ohs works with small crews, which allowed them to disappear in the city.
“It was me and the actors, and three or four other people. There weren’t any lights, trucks or equipment. I looked like a tourist with a camera, taking videos of my friends. And then, of course, there was the Charli element of it.”
But local fans, hardly believing their luck, stayed respectful.
“There was one scene with Will and Charli in a restaurant. We were there for a few hours. The second I put my camera down and said ‘we got it,’ everyone around us stood up and got in line to get pictures with Charli. It’s not like nobody noticed, but the city was very accommodating and friendly.”
Ohio-born Ohs knows Poland well. In the film, his characters even claim that “Warsaw is more romantic than Paris.”
“Some people said: ‘The Polish tourism board is going to love this,’” he jokes.
Introduced to the country through American Film Festival, it was its artistic director Ula Śniegowska who, unwittingly, gave him the idea for the film.
“She kept saying I should make a film in Poland. But what about? She said: ‘Impossible love.’ It was always at the back of my head, this impossible love story in Poland,” he recalls. Eventually, he decided to move there. He shot “Erupcja” eight months later.
“I fell in love with Poland – and with someone in Poland,” he says.
“I don’t live there now, but my ex-partner really loved her country. I was almost jealous, because I’m frequently frustrated by mine and when I hear the word ‘patriotism,’ it feels bad for some of us in America.”
“It was exciting to show a colorful, beautiful, green Warsaw. In the U.S., when we think about Poland, it’s World War II, concrete and black-and-white images. It isn’t like that at all.”
Inspired by the cinema of the 1960s and the French New Wave – “I decided to add a narrator similar to the one in ‘Jules and Jim’” – he likes to keep things spontaneous on set.
“It’s not exactly improv, but the rule is that you always say yes,” he explains about the method he’s used in his last five movies. “You have an idea of what’s going to happen and we are shooting in order, but we’re also writing dialogues before we’re shooting them. The night before or an hour before. There’s potential to go anywhere.”
He adds: “I think it creates some sort of special texture when it’s not always clear what the characters are doing, or it’s not clear to the actors what they’re doing. We show these magical, special relationships that can be hard to define, so why should we even try?”
Because of his starry lead, Magnify-sold “Erupcja” might be Ohs’ most-anticipated film ever, following “Jethica” and “The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick.” But he’s not losing his head just yet.
“People expressed interest to be involved before even seeing the movie – purely because of Charli. She’s definitely the most famous person I’ve had in my films – and one of the most famous people in culture right now.” But his way of making films might be just what celebrities need.
“By collaborating with Jeremy O. Harris and by essentially riding on his coattails, in the last two years I’ve met way more famous people than ever. When I find myself talking about how I make movies – which is the same conversation I had with Charli – I see they’re excited.”
“I’m presenting this very light and easy way to create. The ‘normal’ way of how everything gets made is bad and not fun, and not connected to the reason why they got into it in the first place. Maybe I can show them a way to refill this well of creativity?”
‘Erupcja’
Courtesy of Pete Ohs
