Victoria Review
By David Kempler
More Victorious Than Not
Sebastian Schipper's "Victoria" has been promoted as having been shot in one single long take in a suburb of Berlin, from 4:30 AM to 7 AM. That's nice, but it has no effect on the finished product (from the viewpoint of those of us that watch it), and the product is just fine. It did bring home a slew of awards, including Outstanding Feature at the German film awards.
Victoria (Laia Costa) is a twenty-something year-old woman who has recently moved to Berlin from her home in Spain. She works a low-level job in a small café. When we first meet her, she is dancing and smiling in a club whose music is heavy with thumping bass. Combined with the lights flashing, it looks like a good place to have an epileptic seizure.
As she leaves the club, there are four young men trying to get in, but they're short on cash and long on being obnoxious. They are "Sonne" (sun), "Boxer", "Blinker" (turn signal), and "Fuss" (foot). Out on the street, Victoria gets on her bicycle while the guys chat her up. They are complete imbeciles but she finds them amusing.
When they ask her to come with them to a roof to hang out and get high and she gleefully accepts, I couldn't help but wonder if she was an insanely stupid human being. A woman in a foreign land, who doesn't speak their language, agrees to put herself in an incredibly dangerous situation. I figured that if a rape or murder or both were about to transpire, I would have had very little sympathy for her. It doesn't happen and I think we are supposed to believe she would do this because she has always been a good girl and this is part of her coming out in rebellion.
Despite my reservation about the setup, from that point forward, "Victoria" is very tense and entertaining and mostly believable, although a scene near the end presents German police response as far-fetched. At least I think it is. Most importantly, as a whole, "Victoria" is a fun watch if you are able to suppress your need for total believability. "Victoria" has flaws but is mostly victorious.
