Sunday 3 April 2016

Victoria (2015)

Victoria, directed by Sebastian Schipper, is a bit of an under the radar kind of film for me and I noticed it in trailers (well-made trailers do pique my interest as they are so rare) rather than hearing about it although it was released last year in Germany to very strong reviews. 
Some of those reviews have to be due to the technical achievement of making a film with one take. The first time I remember watching a one-take film was the remarkable Timecode[1] by Mike Figgis which was simultaneously disorientating and impressive. 
The single take technicality is what drew me in, but the question has to be asked over what it actually achieves - there has to be a purpose to the long takes and I have mentioned them before in both River and Gravity reviews and what they achieve there. Victoria has to be a little different as it is the whole film which is done like that which means that the "breather" from the end of the single take is not there until the credits roll at the end. The breathers are still created within the pacing by including small sections in lifts and with changes in audio (the soundtrack is created by Nils Frahm) so I have to say that it is not just a showy gimmick. The atmosphere is quite well created and the way that the characters are rounded off and explained within the "set-up" phase of the heist is really neat, yet natural.
Obviously, with a heist style film, the plot is largely fixed into the genre and the main elements are the set up and the pay off. In this case, the Spanish protagonist, Victoria, is somebody that gets caught up in the partying of four men semi-celebrating a birthday. Victoria has recently moved to Germany and this is a single night in Berlin - and where it could take you. These German men are interesting to her, and she to them, and she joins in with their fun for reasons of loneliness (even though she has work in the morning). The men are "real Berliners" and they entice Victoria with tales of a real Berlin[2] away from the tourist trap clubs (that they cannot afford to get into) which basically means drinking out on the streets and on a rooftop that these friends have commandeered. The chat up lines are both lame and quite sweet, and they work even though they are obvious lies - Victoria is keen to join in and, to the audience, this seems ridiculously risky. What are you expecting to happen in a film to a girl being chased by four drunk men?
With the characters created, the next step is to give them motivation, and this is again done quite neatly with a few jokes and drunken chats so that you know enough about them all to understand their roles. Further exposition is provided for the main character, Victoria, as she plays an astonishing piece of music on the piano which silences her audience (Mephisto Waltz No 1). This scene is excellently done with a nice mixture of tension and explanation providing a little insight as to why she is in Berlin at all and why she may be a little eager to try new things.
Once the heist starts, the characters, of which there are only the five main ones, are all established and the journey of that heist - from practice dry-run to the real thing and its aftermath plays out for the remainder of the film. With this being done in real-time, it is a pretty intense ride through Berlin's early morning.
As the nature of the film is to follow one character - Victoria - it is a massively important role for the film and her ability is integral to whether the film works at all. The actress that makes this all work is the genuinely brilliant Laia Costa who is able to carry this film on her shoulders and is in every part of this film. She lends the film an impish naivety which takes us through the exposition and set-up effortlessly and then brings believable changes to her character later on. Although this is a German film, the language is not exclusively German and there is a European element to it with Victoria herself unable to speak German as she is from Madrid. As a result, much of the film is in English[3] and this means that most of the characters converse with Victoria in broken English or with a slightly stuttering delivery which is a very interesting directorial choice. Even so, the delivery is superb and believable throughout (maybe the second language can cover up some problems with forgetting lines) which is the important thing.
Whilst I would not say Victoria is presently my favourite thing called Victoria, I think I would recommend watching it as it is so live and technically impressive. The whole idea of a journey through a night following someone is expertly realised here and that heist gone awry is treated with a freshness that is sorely lacking from most films. As a result, I would recommend this film to anyone interested in the heist genre and technical film-making. And also anyone that likes good films. That includes you (there are not even that many subtitles to read!).

Here is a trailer:
I watched this at the ever reliable Barbican - you could too. Or you could try the new business model for niche films of streaming at home via Curzon. You could also just not watch it, but that is not a course of action I'd recommend. 

1. In that case, the single take feature was not the only technically impressive element as it was also 4 separate single takes all shown together in the corners of the screen. This would still rank as the single most difficult and disorientating experience of watching a film that I've ever had - I spent the first 30 minutes or so working out how to watch the film.
2. One of the joys of watching films set in London is seeing how unfamiliar and unrepresentative that familar places can be made with judiciously placed lights and careful framing. This may also be the case with Berlin but as the film was shot live there, it is surely quite accurate - at least in the exterior shots. I am very fond of Berlin as a city and the film is set in a fairly central part but not particularly near (or found in shot) any of the more blockbuster sights. Nonetheless, it was still pleasing to see places that I'd walked to and seen myself although it may not always have been an accurate memory of mine.
3. The amount of spoken English is said to have precluded the film from being eligible for inclusion as a foreign language film in the Oscars.