Victoria

I probably didn’t get the film’s message, hence the low rating. When I found out it had over 70%, my jaw dropped so low it almost broke my toe. From my point of view, it’s a movie about a stupid girl, who after leaving a nightclub joins four drunk Germans. When they don't gangrape her within the first five minutes, she’s so thrilled that she joins them in a robbery and child kidnapping. The movie would be too short, so the filmmakers shrewdly filled it with pointlessly long scenes in which nothing happens. I don’t see any point in philosophizing about the influence of disco music on the development of characters, so this is the end of my review. (11/21/2016)

"I'm reluctant to rate it with the hackneyed phrase of "form overshadowed content", though it's pretty much the best way to describe it. In any case, the chosen format "in real time" is bold and ambitious, everything is in constant motion, it is made as one uninterrupted shot and through several different moods and genres it can be undeniably engaging, intense and as “Mann-style" captivating in many scenes as anything else. However, when something does happen (and it does more than it is appropriate), then the chosen form is on the contrary the cause of complete alienation and total exclusion from the movie, when you get so bored that you start noticing the smallest technical and production aspects, how they did a sloppy job in some scenes, and you will not pay that much attention to what is (not) happening on the screen. It's just the whole footage follows the sinusoid curve, for some time it is great, while some time it is out of place. Yet at the end of the day, what is the worst thing about this movie is a way too long, unjustified footage, especially the opening hour. As a result, I would be much more interested in watching a documentary showing how this movie was created including its pitfalls rather than watching the movie itself. Still, great job! We cannot deny that it is something that no one has ever tried before in such a scale. And more importantly, this movie is rather a success than a failure. (10/07/2015)

The film definitely has a good pace and the characters are quite intense, plus it develops maybe a little differently than you expect at first glance. It's a ride, almost in real time, with an interesting camera and interesting editing. However, it didn't manage to engage me in a way that I would outright admire the film. (06/15/2017)

Like Birdman, Victoria fails to convince us that the one-shot approach is anything more than a way to show off (the director likes to boast in interviews that, unlike Iñárritu, he didn’t use “invisible” digital editing and managed to get the whole film down on the third attempt with the actors after ten days of rehearsals). That said, it starts promisingly. Despite the seeming spontaneity, a clear plan and consideration for the viewer can be perceived behind the construction of the plot. All of the main characters are introduced to us during the lively prologue and we can easily remember them thanks to their nicknames. A clever safeguard against occasional slips of the tongue and hesitations is the fact that most of the characters don’t speak their native languages for a large part of the film, so they sometimes have to search for the right expression for a moment. On the roof, potential conflict is indicated by drawing attention to Boxer’s criminal past. In the café, the relationship between Victoria and Sonne is deepened through authentically intimate dialogue, legitimising the girl’s subsequent decision to join in the action to come. When the narrative begins to conform to familiar genre formulas, it loses steam and nearly all of its potential to somehow surprise us. One cliché follows another (the need to find a substitute accomplice, the engine failing to start, the gunshot wound not revealed until long after the impact), the absolute majority of scenes last longer than is necessary, the initially rather likable characters behave increasingly like idiots (which, from a certain moment should clearly be partially explained by the fact that they are under the influence of drugs), and the predictable ending is delayed by a number of unnecessary feints that in no way deepen the characters’ psychology or expand the film’s slight intellectual foundations. Despite the impressive technical execution (the cinematographer rightly gets priority over the director in the closing credits) and the skilful guidance of our attention by alternating between greater and lesser depth of focus, the film is not engaging enough to work as an example of intense “experiential” cinema, nor is it suitably rich in motifs or appropriately specific in the setting or characters (the protagonists barely have enough character traits for a two-and-a-half-hour film) to be taken as a statement about today’s multicultural Berlin or Generation Y. Victoria has bigger ambitions and a bigger budget, but in the end, it’s an admirable failure. (10/09/2015)

For a concept involving the authentic night-time doings of a few characters in ordinary locations of Berlin, 140 minutes is a lot. The first half of this film drags a bit in exceedingly trivial scenes and dialogue. But what happens later is all the more surprising and gripping, especially if you know nothing at all about the plot. The troubles come in hints, and we suspect and fear them because the protagonist doesn’t deserve them. This is a very well made, emotive and thoroughly intensifying “one-shot” film with good acting performances. (08/28/2022)