Victoria (2015)

Genres

Crime, Drama, Romance

Director

Sebastian Schipper

Country

Germany

Cast

Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski, Max Mauff, Burak Yigit, André Hennicke

Storyline

The life of Victoria (Laia Costa), a young Spanish woman living in Berlin, takes an unexpected turn as she meets Sonne (Frederick Lau) and his friends.

Opinion

The reason I watched Victoria is one, it was shot in one single and very long (2 hours and 20 minutes) take so I was very curious to see the result. Unfortunately, it wasn't that big of experience I was expecting. While it's a fantastic technical achievement, I don't get it. I don't get why Schipper decided to use this difficult and risky technique for this film when said technique adds absolutely nothing to the film.

Actually, I think Victoria would have benefited from some editing because there isn't much of a plot, it's quite nonsense and stupid, it feels stretched to fit the 2+ hours running time and ends up being quite tedious and unengaging.

In spite of that, the film still managed to keep me interested thanks to its main character, Victoria, the young Spanish woman. Although her decisions are beyond stupid and no one, I repeat, no one would ever make them, it comes naturally to care for her and sympathize with her because we basically hang out with her and her new friends for 2 hours. Also, her character is quite complex and complicated. We never get to see her in her entirety, but we only get a sense of her emotions wonderfully delivered by Laia Costa.

The action, although it needed to start a little sooner, is good and the credit goes to the director for being able to build tension and suspense. Some of the action sequences are pretty intense and having done that in one single take sure is a huge achievement. However, the camera is shaky, Parkinson-shaky and it's annoying. A lot.