Victoria (2015)

Victoria takes drama to a completely new level. It's Incredibly intense, very intimate thriller. A Stunning movie I won't forget.

What is it with the 77 % review/critic rating - is it "rent-a-crowd" or "rent-a-critic"?OK, so well-crafted American movies which compress time so viewers do not spent their precious time watching boring bits of ordinary life (as they do all the way through "Victoria") are passe and banal, but this???Almost the first hour of this 138 min movie could be compressed into maybe 10 minutes without losing much of the "essential movie". At a party pretty Victoria joins up with a bunch of guys who are such losers they cannot even figure out the car they want to steal is unlocked. They commit petty theft at a convenience store where the elderly attendant is asleep. The others go off and Victoria and Sonne open the bar where she gets paid 4 Euros an hour + tips, though no one comes in. She plays the piano which provides a welcome few minutes of relief from the crushing boredom.About the one hour mark the others return and take Victoria and Sonne off to meet some thug - and his half a dozen henchmen - who hands out handguns and wants them to rob a bank of a known 50,000 Euro. They do this successfully but soon heavily armed cops are hunting them down in force. In the firefight, a couple of them are fatally shot. Sonne is badly wounded. Victoria & Sonne hole up in an apartment block and "borrow" a baby so they can escape. Strangely, just before hailing a cab to go to a hotel, they ditch the baby - nothing is said in the movie, but it seems to have been dumped on the street somewhere - and go to a very expensive hotel. No check-in (or for that matter, other guests or attendants - very strange..) are seen but they enter a room without problems.Sonne refuses to go to hospital and soon dies. A tearful Victoria flees the hotel to wander the street, and that's how the movie ends. Hardly a masterpiece...

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.

Victoria is a movie about the fact that is was shot in one take. This movie is about itself.That is what this movie is about. That is the subject matter. It is not a movie about a Spanish girl living in Berlin, about being estranged in modern modern city life, it is not about Berlin, not about making choices, it is not about life, death, conscience, it is about nothing, nothing other than; the fact that is was shot in one take.It gets five stars in major newspapers, for, as is the case with most films these days; it blows a screen of action and tension, the smoke being a decoy for substance.I remember this space movie with Sandra Bullock, Gravity; that was also supposedly a brilliant movie, since it was made with special techniques. But it was empty all the way through, and people fall for this stuff. This movie is the same thing.Characters are flat as can be, not well written, and the so called slow scenes on poetic music are not telling anything at all. For example: at a certain point our characters are in an elevator and all the dialogue, up to this point very dominant, is turned down to silence; we just see them talking and laughing, as nice music comes up and images seem to slow down. It is supposed to be telling of something, or to be dramatic. What is this telling us? Nothing. That is because there is no drama what so ever, that is accentuated here. It is simply hollow aesthetics.It would be so cool if this was a great movie. Because then the makers would have had their revenge over mainstream cinema, which they were trying to rebel against. A beautiful goal, full of heart and energy - but if the result is a flat movie, obsessed with form and without any substance what so ever, like in Gravity, then what do you have to show for? Where is this an argument for? You only prove yourself wrong, is what you do, and as we say in Holland; you throw in you own windows.I guess the process was exhilarating, which is a good reason to make anything of course.But if you want to watch a movie that is not about itself, and will be dear to you for years to come, because you love the characters, their struggle, their mannerisms, their pain and courage, then don't bother with this.If you want some kind of thriller, then go for it.