This is another Battleship Pretension film suggestion most notably for the gimmick that the film contains. The entire movie is filmed in on extremely long (2 and a half hours) take. To clarify, there is one camera, they pressed record, and then they film the entire movie before ever stopping the recording. If there are no cuts in a film that means there can’t be any mistakes by the actors or any of the coordination, but this film makes it all the more challenging by it being about a heist. Victoria has an 80% on Rotten Tomatoes and is currently the $0.99 iTunes rental for the week.
Victoria is from Spain, but currently staying in Germany and is out at a dance club. She meets four guys that are very close friends and they end up hanging out way into the morning. When one of the four gets too drunk to do a job that has to be done, Victoria is recruited as his replacement.
I was intrigued to see how well the one long take would do in a film. It works, but it doesn’t necessarily add anything to the film. It does add a lot of pressure on the actors and that makes their performances all the more impressive. Otherwise, while a feat in filmmaking and production I don’t know that there is a reason to do it other than for the challenge. Of course, there is no reason to watch 366 movies in a year except for the act of doing it, so respect to director Sebastian Schipper.
The first section of the film was a bit boring and the performances felt improvised and annoying. However, they were drunk guys and I tend to not hang out with drunk people as they are often annoying. I was tempted to walk away from the film for a moment, but I started to grow intrigued by Victoria. She seemed too smart to continue hanging out with these guys. However, she keeps staying and I want to see what happens.
The film grows in intensity and managed to pull me into it. While the one take doesn’t add to the visual story, I couldn’t help but wonder how they managed to do what they did. I’m not sure if their was a making of this film documented, but I would love to see the cinematographer running around and keeping up with the action.
Victoria (Laia Costa) is a very compelling character. I was very much wanting her to make it through the increasing danger she was putting herself into. I’m not really sure if her story about her dreams to be a pianist is what earned her my sympathy, but I was definitely rooting for her.
Victoria is a very interesting film. It does feature quite the challenge in its choice to do the whole film in one take. I heard on the podcast that they filmed the entire movie three times and ended up using the third one as the final. I give Victoria 7 out of 10 stars.
Berkreviews.com 