Review: Victoria

It's no wonder that cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grovlen is billed before director Sebastian Schipper at the close of Victoria for the film is a technical tour-de-force. Shot in one continuous take and featuring heavily improvised dialogue, the film's 134 minutes unfold in real time over the course of 22 reported locations in the Kreuzberg and Mitte neighbourhoods of Berlin. Immersive and exhilarating, but also implausible and indulgent, Victoria is a pure in-the-moment experience.

The film is not the first to employ the single-take approach, but it does eschew the usual visual tricks and logistical fallbacks. Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 crime thriller, Rope, used the real-time conceit and its series of long, uninterrupted shots were edited to appear as a single continuous take, but was relegated to a single setting. Alexander Sokurov's 2002 Russian Ark followed an unnamed narrator as he wandered through 33 rooms of the Winter Palace of Russia's Hermitage Museum. Featuring over 2,000 actors, three orchestras, and culminating in a lavish imperial ball, the action was recorded in one 96-minute Steadicam sequence by Tilman Buettner but underwent tweaks during the post-production process. Last year's Best Picture winner, Birdman, was digitally manipulated to resemble a single unbroken take.

Victoria is no better than its predecessors - in fact, its very nature is a compelling argument for the necessity of the occasional nip and tuck - but as with the aforementioned films, it does transcend its gimmick to become a frequently insightful observation of youth culture, night life, and the search for meaningful connections.

Our heroine Victoria (Laia Costa) is first glimpsed amidst the crowd of writhing and pulsating bodies in an underground techno club. Dawn is approaching, so she makes her way out to catch an hour or two of sleep before taking on the early shift at the cafe in which she works. Outside, she runs into Sonne (Frederick Lau), with whom she sparks a flirtation, and his band of thuggish friends - the out-of-it Fuss (Max Mauff), the long-haired Blinker (Burak Yigit), and the perhaps appropriately named Boxer (Franz Rogowski). Sonne declares to Victoria that they are "real Berlin guys" and coaxes the Madrid native into coming along with them so they can party and show her the real Berlin. It's clear that Victoria, who's only been in Berlin for three months, is wary but willing to go along for the ride but there is a hiss of danger in the air. Sonne may be goofy and charming, but let's just say that he doesn't look the type to don a suit and tie to report for work. His friends are drunk and rowdy, just this side of controllable, and who knows what the next hour or two might bring.

Victoria's unpredictability is one of its strongest assets - this is a film that swerves from dance-floor euphoria to romantic drama to bank heist over the course of two hours, but still finds time for a rooftop respite that effectively conveys the camaraderie between Sonne and his gang and a sweet interlude between Sonne and Victoria as they get to know one another in her shuttered workplace. Nils Frahm's score is used to dreamlike effect, particularly when Schipper drops the dialogue as the gang makes their way to the rooftop and the soft tinklings of music perfectly express that adrenalised yet exhausted feeling of being awake in the wee hours of the morning. Costa and Lau are charismatic and committed performers; their chemistry is so engaging that one wishes their courtship was the film proper instead of the prelude to the darker events of Victoria's second half.

As technically impressive as this film and Grovlen's command of its pacing are, Victoria does suffer from dwelling too long in many of its scenes. Whilst this works in the first half, allowing Victoria and Sonne's romance the space to breathe, it is less effective in the second half when scenes continue past their dramatic end points. This may be a result of the logistical behind-the-scenes, but it still invites restlessness and redundancy.

Victoria

Directed by: Sebastian Schipper

Written by: Sebastian Schipper, Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Eike Frederik Schulz

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