one shot, two hours, total triumph.

Toronto film festival 2015 - First look review
Victoria review: one shot, two hours, total triumph
5 / 5 stars

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/10/victoria-review-one-shot-two-hours-total-triumph
   
Sebastian Schipper’s extraordinary thriller is no mere stunt but an immersive experience whose gripping performances and technical innovation make it hard to shake

 ‘Inarguably a stunt, Victoria still manages to overwhelm in ways that few films do’

Nigel M Smith

Shot over two hours in a single, dazzling take, Victoria is one of the year’s most impressive technical achievements – but it’s more than mere gimmick.

The German film - which first screened at the Berlin film festival where it won the Silver Bear for Cinematography – signals actor-turned-director Sebastian Schipper as a major talent behind the lens. Victoria is a huge logistical and artistic gamble; one which pays off astonishingly.

The film begins in the vein of a neon-lit Gaspar Noe film, with the film’s titular heroine (played by the fiercely talented Laia Costa), dancing in an underground Berlin club to a throbbing techno beat. It’s an intoxicating kickoff to a film whose second act swiftly descends into hell.

After leaving the club in the wee hours of the morning to work at a local cafe, Victoria runs into a pack of young men, who seem intent on wooing her. The best-looking of the group, Sonne (Frederick Lau), succeeds, and Victoria to drop her prior plans to drink with them on a nearby rooftop.


Given the real-time factor of the project, the initial meet-and-greet between Victoria and the men meanders a little, as not much happens. But that makes the payoff all the sweeter when Victoria and Sonne eventually embrace following an intimate exchange.

Their burgeoning romance is put on hold as Sonne and his friends are ordered to meet with a professional gangster to whom they owe a huge debt. Victoria unwisely accompanies them to the underground parking lot, where the men are tasked with robbing a bank to repay Andi. Victoria, in way over her head, agrees to act as driver.

It’s here, past the one-hour mark, that Victoria goes full-throttle to morph into a breakneck, high-stakes heist thriller; it doesn’t let up until its final, mournful reel.


The tracking shot: film-making magic - or stylistic self-indulgence?
 Read more
Shot continuously for over two hours in 22 locations, from 4:30am onwards, Victoria asks a lot of its cast, who improvised all of the dialogue based on a bare-bones script. They all tear into the experiment with abandon. Costa, especially, is remarkable: going from carefree to shellshocked over the course of one life-altering morning, she doesn’t strike a false note, serving as the eyes and ears of the audience on the hellish journey. She also lends the project enormous heart, particularly when the devastating conclusion comes into play.

Despite the strong performances, it’s Schipper’s single-shot conceit - and the fact that he and his team pulled it off with aplomb - that makes Victoria such a bracing triumph. While the entire enterprise is inarguably a stunt, Victoria manages to overwhelm in ways that few films do.

It’s fitting that Schipper breaks convention in the end credits to lead with cinematographer, Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, in place of his name. His incredibly fluid work never distracts - it only immerses.