Alejandro González Iñarritu’s Oscar-winning Birdman was most recently the film that grabbed all the attention for having been filmed in a single take (to be precise, there were a couple of digital tricks involved) and the gimmick proved to be successful, since the film’s value is not only in its form. Prior to that, you surely remember the impressive Russian Ark, which is an even better example considering Aleksandr Sokurov is the helmer of such elaborate piece. And way before that, Hitchcock was the father of movies in real time with his legendary The Rope (with its own tricks as well). And now there’s the German film Victoria, by Sebastian Schipper, which is not only a technical marvel but also a rather entertaining genre piece.
Shot in a single take in real time, Schipper’s engaging film follows Victoria (Laia Acosta), a Spanish girl living in Berlin who has a penchant for electronic music and heavy partying. After dancing like crazy for hours at a hectic club, Victoria decides to go home but by chance she meets three friendly and tipsy German guys at the club’s exit. Out of the blue, they ask her to go have some more fun since, they say, the night is still young.
To Victoria, who besides being a young spirit is also a cute flirt, the proposal seems interesting enough to give it a try. But little did she know that their night out held a secret: the four guys owe someone something and paying the debt is nothing short of dangerous. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Since Victoria pretty much hinges on surprise, the less you know about how the events unfold, the better it is for you to enjoy a highly kinetic cinematic experience that follows the title character at all times (literally) for 138 minutes and spanning across 22 locations across Berlin. And this time, no digital tricks are used at any time and the camera does not cut once — or so they claim.
So suffice it to say that Schipper’s opus first goes for an apparently banal take on four guys and a girl who just want to have fun, but somewhere in the middle of the film, things take an abrupt change and you enter the realm of crime, thieves and police so expect robberies, chases, shoot-outs — the works. The impression of realism is well-achieved: it’s not difficult to feel you are there and to be impressed by the accumulation of unexpected events. More importantly, the performances are quite convincing, with the talented Acosta as Victoria in the first place.
Needless to say, Victoria is the type of film that owes a lot to its cinematographer, Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, who certainly knows how to take full advantage, in narrative terms, of a technical experiment that could have just been a meaningless gimmick. Not that the story itself is extremely remarkable, but it’s more than decent enough to provide over two hours of solid entertainment.
Production notes:
Victoria (Germany, 2015). Directed by Sebastian Schipper. Written by Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Sebastian Schipper, Eike Frederik Schulz. With Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski, Burak Yigit, Max Mauff, André Hennicke, Anna Lena Klenke. Cinematography: Sturla Brandth Grøvlen. Editing: Olivia Neergaard-Holm. Running time: 140 minutes.
