Review of Victoria (2015) by Kareem E — 02 Jan 2016

Sebastian Schipper's flawless masterpiece is a potent reminder of why I love cinema. It expertly evokes the entire gamut of human emotion, and its actors have some of the best chemistry that I have ever seen in a film.

More than any film this year, "Victoria" is best viewed without knowing too much about the plot. The film consists of a single, 140 minute take, and yet it ends so far away from where it begins that it is easy to forget that the story unfolds in real time: A young woman from Spain meets a group of German guys as she is leaving a club in Berlin.

You get the sense that she's lonely, bored, and frustrated with her life, and so she continues to hang out with them, even when things don't seem quite right. She's drawn to Sonne, the charming young man who initially approaches her: most of the first half of the film shows their carefree and playful interaction.

The audience falls in love with the characters at the same time as the two main characters fall in love with one another... And then something happens, and would Victoria be willing to do just one, small favor? There is nothing gimmicky about the fact that the film is a single shot - actually one shot, not edited to appear that way: it's a decision that thrusts the audience into the film, in the same way that Victoria is thrust into the events of the story.

At first blush the plot might seem absurd, and yet, emotionally and logically, each sequence seems to follow inescapably from the sequence that precedes it, and the viewer is left with the sense that none of the characters ever quite grasp the gravity of the decisions that they are making.

"Victoria" is powerfully well made - it's my favorite film of this year, and one of my favorite films of any year.