Directed by: Sebastian Schipper
Written by: Sebastian Schipper, Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Eike Frederik Schulz
Cast: Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski, Burak Yigit, Max Mauff
Cinematography by: Sturla Brandth Grøvlen
Music by: Nils Frahm

Laia Costa, as Victoria, dances, laughs, drinks, plays piano, walks, runs, cycles, drives, smiles, falls in love, becomes a member of a criminal gang, has fun, cries and mourns within 138 minutes of a single take. “Single-take” may be the spoiler for those who think this might be another pretentious technical marvel, but actor-turned-writer/director Sebastien Schipper moves the film in the most unexpected directions, Even without the single-shot approach, this would still be an excellent film, but with it, it becomes a dazzling, spell-binding experience, similar to nothing you have experienced recently.

The film beginning with a loud frenzied night-club scene, followed by a street walking-biking chat of the newly created club acquaintances does not look promising, and I was getting ready to go to smoke a cigarette outside the cinema (thinking, “oh no, another youth generational film”). But, I felt drawn and glued to the chair, mesmerized by the film’s sudden twists and pulsating rhythm. I was hypnotized and stayed, forgetting about my nicotine craving.

Sschipper chooses for his title actress Spanish Laia Costa, who plays the role of Victoria wonderfully, brilliantly, superbly – I cannot find enough adverbs or adjectives to describe her acting. I haven’t seen a performance by an actress in recent times to match her vigour, passion, electrifying energy and authenticity. Costa carries the weight, strength, rhythm and pace of the film and is present in nearly every frame. Although the focus is on her, it doesn’t undermine, of course, the presence of other, equally wonderful, actors in their roles as Sonne (Frederick Lau), Boxer (Franz Rogowski), Blinker (Burak Yigit), and Fuß (Max Mauff),who all become an inseparable, organic whole - the five are the whole cast of this one night in Berlin film - contributing to the general feel-good symbiosis throughout the film: from their initial casual encounter outside a Berlin club (where Victoria’s and Sonne’s looks meet for the first time), their walking, talking and biking around the Berlin streets, to the roof-top climb up and down, to the café piano playing scene, which displays a beautiful moment of intimacy and vulnerability between the two of the gang.

{niftybox background=#8FBC8F, width=365px} So “naturally” does Costa switch from piano playing to tearful confessions, from childlike laughter and innocent hugs to erotically charged and intense romantic moments, often very embarrassing and awkward between two people meeting for the first time and not knowing what to do with this immense attraction and passion they feel for each other.{/niftybox}

The guys, at first, tease and provoke Victoria in their typically silly boyish street manners, but she does not get scared and teases them back, sometimes wittily, sometimes incautiously and more spontaneously, but mostly full of almost motherly sympathy for this foolish boy gang.

She also soon discovers they steal beer from a shop for fun. And, although she only has a couple of hours before she has to open up the cafe where she works, she joins the gang fun, exhibiting great curiosity, courage, and passion for new life experiences and risks, becoming their meeting point, a mother-figure for the generation lost in their lethargic, apathetic “goals”. With her passionate pragmatism, she rescues them when they are in danger, with her witty imagination she reconciles them when the gang is threatened to break apart, encourages them with positive energy, and heals them when they are ailing. It doesn’t matter that they are doomed to fail in their ethically suspicious and shaky project. It is thanks to her they are kept alive, as if she, this “southern foreigner”, were the ultimate source of life, the awakening creative energy which they were not even aware they had been looking for all this time. She, on the other hand, is instinctively drawn to her role of the savior, to which she remains dedicated to the end of the film, which spans one delirious, maddening and mysterious Berlin night, underscored by hypnotic, melancholic Nils Frahm’s music (one of the rare examples of my appreciating extra-diegetic music).

Laia Costa’s crying scene towards the film end is one of the most fascinating, convincing and emotionally-charged long crying scenes I have seen, comparing perhaps only to Adele Exarchopoulos in La vie d’Adele: Chapitre 1 & 2 (en passant, the most powerful scene in that film). For almost eight minutes, Costa cries, saliving, swallowing her tears and falling apart in front of the camera – unedited.

It looks real, “natural” and spontaneous, and this is the main strength of the single-shot methodology no other feature films can match. We, the audience, may think this is a result of a fortunate improvisation. But for it to look so real and spontaneous, I can only imagine the preparation, logistics, organisation and choreography it took the director and his cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, awarded at the 2015 Berlin Film festival (who must have been exhausted from running around, especially with hand-held camera by the end of the filming) to make this “look” so believable and natural. First, the cast had to be in great shape to endure the demanding tasks of filming. But they also had to be relaxed and clever actors to exude this symbiotic energy. And they also had to speak a non-native language throughout 138 min, which adds another touch of reality and charm to their German and Spanish accents in English. In those moments, you feel you could be in the streets of Berlin or another European metropolis, where you meet various accents from around Europe that blend and melt into the cosmopolitan, recognisable and familiar “eurenglish”, and this feeling of phonetic familiarity wears out the initial feeling of possible insecurity and outcastness, that other, non –European immigrants are unlikely to experience in the same way.

With all this meticulous work and superb mise-en-scene, the cast also had to be – simply superb. They had to be great, in fact. The best. The director pushes the actors’ performances to the extreme – they are tired, exhausted, happy, exhilarated, sad, threatened during unedited 138 minutes.

{niftybox background=#8FBC8F, width=365px}And instead of acting, it seems they simply ARE. This accent on actors’ talents is less surprising if we bear in mind that they were placed under the vigilant guidance of someone who had a great experience as an actor. Victoria was filmed three times on consecutive nights, with the third take becoming the final subliminal film product. {/niftybox}

This single-take methodology, inevitably, brings to mind films such as Birdman and The Russian Ark, but in its genre blending, the focus on intimate story-telling, and vertiginous rhythm it can be reminiscent also of Richard Linklater, Gaspar Noé, Bonnie & Clyde, or Run Lola Run. There are no “masked” edits or gimmicks here, as various cinematographers (I have talked to) confirm in awe.

The film flawlessly moves between genres and, in one moment, it looks as a powerful romantic drama, in another an action-packed crime thriller, with melancholic social drama overtones, which makes it the most exciting film I’ve seen in recent decades.

Maja Bogojević