It has been shown that films shot in a single take have soul for the snobbish festival audience and are destined to appear on annual lists of the best films. Such an approach is often deeply calculative at its core or serves as a platform for promoting the egos of technically skilled directors. ‘Victoria’ was filmed in a single, nearly two and a half hour long take, on the streets of Berlin, in its nightclubs and residential buildings. However, director Sebastian Schipper and his cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, as paradoxical as it may sound in this form, are economical filmmakers. They did not shoot ‘Victoria’ to boast about their technical virtuosity, but because they believed that this story could only be told in this way. For the first hour, before Shipper skillfully and imperceptibly transforms it into an exciting thriller, ‘Victoria’ functions as an authentic bittersweet document of a night out. Rarely have nights out been so well depicted. However, this is primarily a film about the lost European generation. In it, young people with good hearts, unprepared for the cruel neoliberal system, are both victims and criminals. A great European film.
Victoria – a great film about the lost European generation
