Charli XCX does indie for Warsaw

Cinema is one of the creative foods of Charli XCX. This is how the title of his latest album declares it –Music, fashion, film–, on whose cover Martin Scorsese appears, and which closes with a monologue by David Cronenberg. But a figure as voracious as the author of Brat cannot be satisfied with winks, and in recent months has dedicated a considerable part of his hyperactivity to the screen: not only has he composed the songs for Wuthering Heights [Wuthering Heights], but has participated as an actress in various films and has even become the driving force behind two projects: the mockumentary The moment and Eruption, a pocket-sized drama he coprodces, cowrites, and stars in. Here, the British anti-star embodies Bethany, a woman who returns to her amulet-like city, Warsaw, to reconnect with her friend Nel, next to whom everything seems more exciting and open to possibilities that turn everything upside down, like a volcanic eruption. Pete Ohs' film presents itself proudly disheveled and with a cinephile militancy that is evident in scenes like the one where Bethany discreetly pursues Nel, a direct reference to The crazy journeys of Céline and Julie (Jacques Rivette, 1974), which Charli XCX herself points to as one of her staple films. But, however much she may want to take as a model the liberated and collaborative spirit of the cinematic tradition represented by Rivette's work, it is impossible not to perceive Erupjca as an unwitting star vehicle, an indie toy tethered to the polyhedron of one of the most fascinating pop figures of our era.