Victoria
Victoria
NR | 09 October 2015 (USA)
Victoria Trailers

A young Spanish woman who has newly moved to Berlin finds her flirtation with a local guy turn potentially deadly as their night out with his friends reveals a dangerous secret.

Reviews
Nonureva Really Surprised!
Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.
Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
Patience Watson One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.
andreashusa If this film was shot in several takes it wouldn't be the same. The fact that it has been made in one take makes the film so extraordinary and unique. It makes the audience feel more familiar with the surroundings and the whole film feels more real and intense. If the film was made in several takes and not in real-time, it would be more like an ordinary German crime film. The cinematography is the most central and unique element in this production.
matahari20-1 For the two plus hours of one perfect, seamless camera follow of this film's titular character alone, this is simply an amazing feat. But this is also a post-modern Shakespearean experience with its tumultuous highs and lows and the most moving nuanced portrayal of two strangers finding one another and falling in love I believe I have ever seen in film and usually cinematic romance bores me to tears. But this goes beyond romance; you enter the lives of this pair and the troupe of which they are a part and you cannot help but empathise with them in their their elation, their fear, frustration, relief, craziness, tenderness, desire and pain over the course of a new day breaking as the group becomes deeply embroiled in a criminal act circumstance somewhat forces upon them. The acting and character development are also brilliant. And I wonder how much of it was ad-libbed to a basic plot and script, because I just don't know if this kind of natural and realistic dialogue and character interaction could result from heavy planning.I really loved this film. It really is a masterpiece (I thought such comments might have been made by friends of the film's creators initially, before viewing) It will be one to stay with me and I will also be looking out for other films by these writers and/or with these actors in them.
watson-james-902-282983 This movie was a genuinely hard one for me to decide on my opinion for, because it was by far one of the best movies I've ever come across, in terms of cinematography and style. And it wasn't the "one-take" part that impressed me the most (although it was part of it), but all of the other touches that went with it. For example, most releases tend not to include subtitles for what the German-speaking people are saying, which means that, unless you can speak the language yourself (I can't), then you're basically in the same place as young Victoria. You have no idea what's going on, what everyone else is saying, and, in turn, no idea what's about to happen until it happens.Then there was the seamlessness of the filming combined with the overall chaos of the film; first off, the dialogue is stilted and quite difficult to follow, and not just because of the language barrier - they're talking naturally, and most of what they're saying is improvised. It almost feels like you're there with them, trying to follow a rowdy conversation that you cannot quite remember how it started. And then there's the fact that, occasionally, someone will make a mistake, which ranges from the not-so-serious (Fredrick Lau accidentally dropping the cigarette that was handed to him and making up for it by getting all sullen) to the almost fatal (that part where Laia Costa accidentally took the wrong turning and almost drove right into a crowd of camera crew, prompting panic in the car and her to start cursing in Spanish). It was things like that that made the one-take style so effective. And it was what drew me to the film.However, as mentioned in the title, it was not without its flaws. And the pretty big one was the plot of the film. Let me be fair; it was the second half I'm complaining about. In the beginning, when it was just a Spanish girl, alone, with a low-paying job she has to go to in a couple of hours, following the rowdy group of German guys that she can barely understand through the streets of Berlin and getting on so well with them was just beautiful. Because I've been there. It felt relatable. But the second half didn't just feel awfully contrived. It was awfully contrived. It suddenly lost all sense of realism and felt like we were drifting from a perfectly fantastic story into a cliché-ridden, rubbish version of a heist movie. I genuinely found myself wishing that we could go back to the epilepsy-inducing strobe lights of the nightclub that I could barely watch at the beginning.That said, it was still a great movie. And I'd particularly like to highlight Laia Costa's performance. She was definitely the stand-out of the film, and by far my favourite. Especially the way she ended the film. And, if I may, she has such an amazing smile.
Alexis Smith This spellbinding trip through Berlin youth culture is a masterful achievement for the production team who filmed this all in one take. This ambitious technique didn't compromise the power of the visuals or the scale of the set. Despite my trained eye, the narrative was so strong that I wouldn't have noticed there weren't any cuts. Like Berlin's character itself, this effortless artistry symbolises two fingers up to the Hollywood blockbusters that need 100 takes to perfect just 1 second of film. The story follows a young woman who makes a series of decisions that go against the natural instinct of every other woman watching. When we would say no to a group of thugs in a dark side street, she says yes. This sets up the premise for the film as the story spirals more and more out of control. Through the development of a tender relationship between her and the male lead, the onion layers fall away and the audience can deduce why she is so reckless and self-destructive. It is this psychology that gives the story permission to escalate and become so separate from anything you or I would do. Don't watch the trailer, don't know anything about it before you watch it and you will be amazed.