Victoria is worth watching as a thriller, but it has become notorious for a pretty important aspect of its filmmaking – the entire movie was filmed in a SINGLE SHOT. Its tagline is One girl. One city. One night. One take. (Actually, the successful take was on the third try.) Rope and Birdman are famously filmed to LOOK like they are one shot. But all of Victoria really IS just one shot.
That would be noteworthy enough if Victoria were a drawing-room story like Rope, but it is amazing for a story that zips between interior and exterior locations, runs from nighttime through daybreak and includes chase scenes through the streets of Berlin. It’s a stunning achievement for director Sebastian Shipper.
After a career disappointment, young Spanish woman (Laia Costa) has moved to Germany – where she knows no one – and has taken a service job while she licks her wounds. Out for a beer after work, she meets a bunch of drunk German guys. Partying with them leads to an entanglement with one of those low-level criminal enterprises that just isn’t going to turn out well. Things get life-or-death serious, and the characters are soon on the run for their lives.
The German characters don’t speak Spanish and the Spanish girl doesn’t speak German, so they speak to each other in broken English; the only English subtitles are when the German guys are talking to each other in German about the girl in her presence.
Costa is on-screen for the entire movie, and she’s very, very good. She nails the character, somebody who is basically good but who can impulsively make the wrong choice, too. Anyone who sees her as a mere adornment underestimates her at his own risk. She is full of moxie and is damn practical.
Frederick Lau is especially good as the guy who connects most personally with the girl. Franz Rogoski is also outstanding as the guy whose troubled past catches up to him and devours his friends, too.
Anyone who has watched a film noir will find Victoria’s ending is disappointingly predictable. Otherwise, this would have been one of the top ten films of 2015.
But Victoria is still a gripping 138-minute thrill ride. Director and co-writer Shipper acted in Run, Lola, Run which had previously set the standard for movie freneticism. Make sure that you watch it in one uninterrupted sitting. Victoria is available to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.