Review | Film review: Victoria – brilliant one-take German heist thriller set in late-night Berlin
Great camerawork and sterling performances from a skeleton script mark this action-packed look at fate, split-second decisions and their implications
4/5 stars
While you might not know it if you watch Sebastian Schipper’s film unawares, Victoria is filmed entirely in one take. No cuts, no tricks ... just a 134-minute thriller that deftly, almost impossibly, weaves itself around 22 locations in Berlin.
As much as this sounds like dazzling showmanship by Schipper and his cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grovlen – and it certainly is – this tale of one Spanish tourist’s night-time odyssey builds towards a devastating emotional crescendo that has little to do with dexterous camerawork.
Laia Costa stars as the titular waitress from Madrid, on a three month working trip to the German city. On a night out clubbing, she meets local lad Sonne (Frederick Lau) who convinces her to accompany him and his friends for an after-hours drink.
After some shy flirting, one thing leads to another – but not towards the climax you might expect. With Sonne’s friend Boxer (Franz Rogowski) indebted to an ex-con, these wannabe heavies are strong-armed into committing a bank robbery. With Victoria roped in as the getaway driver, the heist is pulled off with relative ease; but after the celebrations comes chaos.
If it sounds far-fetched – not least why Victoria didn’t just walk away from these coke-fuelled thugs before she got in too deep – it is. But, as it muses on the nature of fate and those irrational split-second moments that can change your life forever, it’s almost impossible, rather like Victoria, to not get swept up by the intensity of the situation.
