Victoria (2015)
Directed by Sebastian Schipper
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.
22 connections found
View:
22 films that influenced Victoria
What critics say influenced Victoria
Like "Russian Ark," but fast!
In 2002, Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov created "Russian Ark," a fantastical, 99-minute art-and-history tour of the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg, out of a single, flowing, uninterrupted camera shot, a feat made possible only by digital cameras.
Aleksandr Sokurov’s 2002 documentary Russian Ark created an elegant one-shot tour of the Hermitage Museum, but Victoria glides through the night in service of a story.
That’s been done before; back in 2002, during the infancy of the digital film revolution, “Russian Ark” offered a 96-minute take.
That bravura exploit (echoing Alexander Sokurov's documentary "Russian Ark") played out over 22 locations and needed the help of six assistant directors and three sound crews.
Director Sebastian Schipper amps up the intensity to "Run Lola Run" levels, but eventually overplays his hand.
It won’t surprise viewers unfamiliar with actor-turned-helmer Schipper’s career that he has previously collaborated with Tom Tykwer: For much of its seamless running time, “Victoria” essentially plays as “Run Lola Run” minus the stylized videogame conceit.
German director Sebastian Schipper is most famous for having acted a small role in Run Lola Run.
In 1998, Tom Tykwer made "Run Lola Run," a kinetic thriller in which the German star, Franka Potente (later of "The Bourne Identity"), seemed to never stop moving.
In its virtuosity, subject matter, and country of origin, Victoria calls to mind Run Lola Run.
Director/co-writer Sebastian Schipper, a veteran actor who’s appeared in “Run Lola Run” and “The English Patient,” knows character and performance as expertly as he does crime movie mechanics, and balances those elements so well in “Victoria” that watching it feels like being a sixth amigo, not just some detached audience member observing fictional figures.
It’s like if “Before Sunrise” suddenly turned into a minimalist “Heat,” complete with a robbery scene shown entirely from within the getaway vehicle.
The transition from astute "Before Sunrise"-style love story to kinetic thriller in the vein of "Run Lola Run" is seamless.
Director Sebastian Schipper had only 12 pages of script, and with the cameras rolling nonstop, he let the actors improvise their lines, aiming for the loose conversational style of something like the Richard Linklater film “Before Sunrise.”
She accepts, and so begins an off-kilter adventure that brings to mind Before Sunrise — if Ethan Hawke’s Jesse had been of considerably more dubious character.
They wander a bit behind the rest of the hooligans, and their scenes have the easy, natural rapport of first love that recalls other single-night stories like Before Sunrise.
Schipper’s direction is extremely accomplished throughout, effectively pulling off a seamless series of genre switches, but giving each story equal dramatic and emotional weight, so that the early section has all the charm and intimacy of, say, Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (there’s a beautiful, tender moment involving a piano that comes out of nowhere and is utterly charming).
Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope” consists of eight 10-minute takes (the limit of a standard film magazine); by contrast, Hungarian art-god Béla Tarr’s celebrated “Werckmeister Harmonies” – 39 fixed-camera shots over 145 minutes – is pretty much a hip-hop video.
Hitchcock did it in his audacious “Rope,” following two killers across the scene of a crime in 96 minutes of (pretend) uncut (pretend) real time — its collection of 8- to 10-minute shots seamlessly edited together to look like one.
Even Hitchcock’s Rope and last year’s Oscar-winner Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) pulled some deft maneuvers to create the illusion of filming all in one take.
Where other movies like Rope or Birdman artfully hid their cuts to give the illusion that their stories were happening in real time, director and co-writer Sebastian Schipper’s fourth feature works without a net, its two-hour-plus journey through the early morning hours of Berlin growing increasingly more suspenseful, his camera capturing every moment.
Victoria is not the first movie based on a single-shot conceit, but many feted previous examples have used visual sleight of hand, from Rope to Russian Ark to Birdman.
Alfred Hitchcock used extremely long takes (along with discreet cuts) to mimic a single-shot structure for his 1948 thriller “Rope.”
Advertisement
That last bit is swiped from the classic noir “Gun Crazy,” another film using its limitations (in that film’s case, money) as inspiration.
An even greater story influence appears to be the 1980s American thrillers After Hours (directed by Martin Scorsese ) and Jonathan Demme ’s Something Wild, in which flirtations with newcomers led to dangerous nights of the soul.
An even greater story influence appears to be the 1980s American thrillers After Hours (directed by Martin Scorsese ) and Jonathan Demme ’s Something Wild, in which flirtations with newcomers led to dangerous nights of the soul.
As far as I know, Mike Figgis’ “Timecode,” made in 2000, was the first true example, and as its title suggests it was essentially a novelty item.
Advertisement
Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope” consists of eight 10-minute takes (the limit of a standard film magazine); by contrast, Hungarian art-god Béla Tarr’s celebrated “Werckmeister Harmonies” – 39 fixed-camera shots over 145 minutes – is pretty much a hip-hop video.
As she leaves, Sonne (Frederick Lau, "A Coffee in Berlin") and his buddies Boxer (Franz Rogowski), Blinker (Burak Yigit, "Mustang") and Fuß (Max Mauff, "Absurdistan," "The Reader") begin to flirt, hoping to convince her to stay out a little longer despite the late hour.