One shot is not enough

Laia Costa in a scene from "Victoria." Image courtesy Adopt Films.

It's silly to bemoan a filmmaker using a gimmick to sell his or her movie considering how much of the medium's history is rooted in gimmickry as a sales tactic; talking pictures blew people's minds just 90 years ago. It is fair, however, to call out a filmmaker for using a trick poorly, as director Sebastian Schipper does in “Victoria.” His selling point is a two-hour plus film using a continuous shot – everything was recorded in one take – which sounds like an interesting idea, but results in an overlong, slow film that lacks tension.

“Victoria” opens with the sound of techno music at an unremarkable club in Berlin; the lights flash at a seizure-inducing pace as the dancers celebrate their youth (carpe diem  is one of the film’s themes). Alone on the dance floor is the titular Victoria (Laia Costa, offering the film's best performance), a lonely Spanish girl new to the city and with no one else to party with as the night becomes either way too late or far too early. Waiting for her as she emerges from the subterranean bar are four men, led by the charming-ish Sonne (Frederick Lau), who are a little impish, the kind of guys who enjoy committing a friendly misdemeanor, but are seemingly harmless enough. Lau and his friends (played by Franz Rogowski, Burak Yigit and Max Mauff) are celebrating Mauff's birthday, and Costa tags along for a spell before Lau escorts her to work so she can acquire somewhere around 40 winks before her bakery shift starts. They're enjoying their alone time only to be interrupted when the other three arrive and persuade Costa to join them on what they think is a quick assignment, a little jaunt before returning back to the bakery. That's the plan anyway, at least until gangster Andi (André Hennicke) gives them guns, drugs and instructions on how to pull off a two-minute bank robbery to steal 50,000 euros so Rogowski's character can pay back a debt. Shenanigans involving stolen cars, stolen loot, guns, cops, a baby, and tragedy ensue.

I can’t imagine how big of a pain in the butt it was to shoot “Victoria” in one take – it can take a week, if not longer, to shoot a 10-minute sequence depending on the director – and credit goes to Schipper for giving it the old college try. Also, it is easy to see the logic behind using the continuous shot in this type of movie; the effect is a bit dizzying, reflecting the characters' alcohol- and drug-fueled states and the confusion of the situation they've been thrust into. And, admittedly, using a one-shot tactic on the bank robbery alone could have worked famously; bank robbery scenes are always intense given the nature of the act.

All of that is a gentle way of saying it doesn't work in “Victoria.” The movie is far, far too long to justify the single take, and it results in a sizable amount of time devoted to what should be a quick getting-to-know-you sequence. That sequence, the least interesting part of the film, evolves into an interminable slog that takes precious time away from the robbery. “Victoria” isn't necessarily about the bank robbery – crime films tend to emphasize the proverbial morning after the theft – but it shouldn’t be elided over as much as it is here. Using the extreme long take also requires the film to reduce the amount of space it feels in real life, clustering its locations into one small part of Berlin. In other words, the bank that's robbed is within spitting distance of the club, the bakery, and the place where the unwilling criminals meet with Hennicke.

Strip away the gimmick though and what remains is a mediocre crime flick indebted to films like “After Hours” and “The Asphalt Jungle.” “Victoria” doesn't have much to add to the genre – anyone who has ever seen such a film knows they rarely feature a happy ending – and a crime boss recruiting novice criminals to execute a bank robbery with less than five minutes of prep time is a preposterously stupid concept. The issue harkens back to that one-shot trick, reinforcing that maybe, perhaps, it is better to offer some editing to iron out such obvious and onerous wrinkles.

Review: Two and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: NR

Run time: 138 minutes

Genre: Crime

Ask Away

Target audience: Viewers down for a gimmick film and anyone into European art house cinema.

Take the whole family?: I'll go with no for this one; it gets wicked bloody toward the end.

Theater or Netflix?: Another one of those Netflix films if you really want to see it.

How effective is a one-shot take?: It can set the mood for an entire film if it's done right, as is the case with “Touch of Evil,” or place the viewer in a lull to set up a good shock as is the case with the infamous tricycle scene from “The Shining.” A good long take can even put the viewer in a character's shoes, a good example being the tracking shot in “Goodfellas” through the Copacabana.

                       From "Touch of Evil." As with the rest of the film, nothing is as it seems.

Watch this instead?: Director Sebastian Schipper acted in another German crime film that takes a unique approach to its storytelling, the terrific “Run Lola Run.” Also worth seeking out is the 1955 classic French crime thriller “Rififi,” which has one of the best burglary scenes ever filmed, along with the inspiration for one of Quentin Tarantino's most infamous shots.