Avis des critiques

Logistically staggering though it is, Victoria is half a great film and half an okay but silly film. The single take strategy makes total sense, and it does manage to supercharge the simple material without drawing too much undue attention to itself. But with its story being split so cleanly in half, it's hard to decipher what – if anything – the film is trying to say.

Schipper's low-budget drama about a reckless young girl's excursion into the world of crime would be an ordinary enough affair were it not for the astonishing fact that he and cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen shot the whole film in a single take, roaming the streets of Berlin to encompass 22 different locations en route. Bolstered by an atmospheric score by Nils Frahm and masterful performances by its young leads... the result is a lively and engrossing exercise in creative swagger.

Armrest-clenching adrenaline and the impulsivity of Berlin's "anything goes" hedonism combine with technical virtuosity in Sebastian Schipper's impressive arthouse twist on the heist movie. In one long, exhilarating take in real time through 22 locations and with a pounding electronic soundtrack by Nils Frahm Victoria reels us along with a Spanish ex-pat (Laia Costa) from a night out clubbing into a bank robbery with sensitive tough Sonne (Frederick Lau) and his friends.

Without the stunt, there's not much of a movie: The robbers are drug-addled dunces, the job itself is foolish contrivance — hey, let's run across a city street with a mask and a gun toward that bank! — and we don't see enough of Victoria beforehand to understand why she'd be dense enough to join them or thrill-hungry enough to stay... But there *is* the stunt, and it generates fascination even when your mind's wandering from the caper.

This German thriller was shot entirely in one take, and the stunt is so impressive that it often overshadows the drama... When the men reveal themselves to be criminals, the twist feels anticlimactic, given how long he's held the audience in suspense. But beneath the pulpy plotting and breathtaking camerawork lies a subtle character study; as the heroine gradually comes into focus, she seems less a patsy in the men's scheme than a woman with her own reasons for courting danger.

Victoria is unthinkable without Sturla Brandth Grøvlen's unfailingly dazzling camera work, which earned him a deserved Silver Bear at this year's Berlinale, as well as the first slot in the film's closing credits. A covert member of the group and participant in every action, his versatile camera injects each scene with the requisite mood, conveying Victoria's shifting frame of mind.

Certainly, there can be an exhibitionistic, championship plate-spinning aspect to the art of the intricate long take, and there's something of this in Victoria too. What stops the film from being alienating is partly its unpredictability, for Schipper and co-writers Olivia Neergaard-Holm and Eike Frederik Schulz refuse to give us too many signals to indicate the path ahead.

The language barrier, the boozy haze of post-bar-hopping exhilaration, the meet-cute butterflies between her and Sonne: It is very much a youthful European experience that happens to go too far, devolving into a heart-stopping final sequence. While Schipper, Costa, and company don't quite stick the landing (and a stumble or two is understandable when one flies so high for so long), Victoria is, nevertheless, a singular accomplishment well worth a peek from behind white-knuckled fingers.

Right from the beginning, Schipper's decision to capture the entire movie in one shot (he reportedly got it on the third take) bloats its running time for no good reason... Ultimately, though, the real problem with Victoria is that it isn't about anything apart from answering the question, "Can we pull this off?" Costa makes Victoria immensely appealing, but the character isn't given much to do, apart from express some regret early on about her failure to make the grade as a concert pianist.

For a long stretch this movie plays well. Quiet moments, such as when Victoria plays a piano waltz and reveals herself to have a concert-level talent, have a feel for urban yearning. Costa is appealing; it's a pleasure to watch her brush her teeth in real time. The limits of the conceit become plain when the heist happens, goes awry, and devolves into jittery pans and a whole lot of shouting, mostly things like "Shut the [expletive] up!" Editors, and screenwriters, surely aren't obsolete yet.

Although I already walked into the film skeptical of its technical "bravura"... it lost me only two minutes in, when this pretty young Spaniard tags along, alone at 4am, with a gang of drunk, volatile young men who clearly seem one drink away from violence and rape. The natural tension created by real-time long shots teases us with a how-bad-will-this-go vibe conjoined to the (admittedly consistent) pure stupidity of the girl who can't seem to read the many, many danger signs around her.

For this nonfiction-oriented viewer, Victoria exhilarates because it's harnessed to reality. The film's narrative plausibility is up for debate, but its novel technique forces it to adhere to real world time and geography, which imbues a thrilling sense of spontaneity.