ThiefHott Too much of everything

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

dromasca Sometimes, in the middle of the desert, one encounters a green, luxurious, exuberant oasis, full of life and beauty. This is exactly my feeling after having viewed 'Victoria' in this summer cinematographic season which seems drier and duller and dummer than any other that I remember. After so many brainless action movies, and huge stars playing flat roles in boring comedies, here comes a film which is a wonderful combination of action and human feelings, of wonderful acting and cinematographic excellencies. Some of the reviews that I have read use the word 'masterpiece'. This is far from being an exaggeration.'Victoria', co-written and director by Sebastian Schipper who is better known as an actor, takes places in real-time, late at night and early in the morning, in Berlin, the German capital, in 2015. The feeling of reality is brightly transmitted to viewers by making the film with one shot, more than two hours of cinema filmed with hand-held camera, all the time close to the heroes of the film. Their lives change forever during these 140 minutes. It visibly took a huge effort to prepare the whole filming which takes us in different places, streets, shops, night clubs, building and roofs in Berlin. The result is spectacular.It's a movie about loneliness, friendship and love, about youth, searching a meaning in life and failing. The heroes are a young Spanish girl, ex-musician, living in the cosmopolitan capital of Germany without speaking German who meets a group of fringe youth from East Berlin. As the action develops the characters will know each other, will fall in love, will get into trouble, and their destinies will change. Acting is also superb, with the Spanish actress Laia Costa in the lead role, and the German actors Frederick Lau and Franz Rogowski. Far from being just a gimmick, the technical achievement of this film is fully justified and fits well the story and the action. Berlin at the hours of deep night and uncertain dawn looks more interesting than I have ever seen it since 'Der Himmel über Berlin'. This is German cinema at its best.

JRmf What is it with the 77 % review/critic rating - is it "rent-a-crowd" or "rent-a-critic"?OK, so well-crafted American movies which compress time so viewers do not spent their precious time watching boring bits of ordinary life (as they do all the way through "Victoria") are passe and banal, but this???Almost the first hour of this 138 min movie could be compressed into maybe 10 minutes without losing much of the "essential movie". At a party pretty Victoria joins up with a bunch of guys who are such losers they cannot even figure out the car they want to steal is unlocked. They commit petty theft at a convenience store where the elderly attendant is asleep. The others go off and Victoria and Sonne open the bar where she gets paid 4 Euros an hour + tips, though no one comes in. She plays the piano which provides a welcome few minutes of relief from the crushing boredom.About the one hour mark the others return and take Victoria and Sonne off to meet some thug - and his half a dozen henchmen - who hands out handguns and wants them to rob a bank of a known 50,000 Euro. They do this successfully but soon heavily armed cops are hunting them down in force. In the firefight, a couple of them are fatally shot. Sonne is badly wounded. Victoria & Sonne hole up in an apartment block and "borrow" a baby so they can escape. Strangely, just before hailing a cab to go to a hotel, they ditch the baby - nothing is said in the movie, but it seems to have been dumped on the street somewhere - and go to a very expensive hotel. No check-in (or for that matter, other guests or attendants - very strange..) are seen but they enter a room without problems.Sonne refuses to go to hospital and soon dies. A tearful Victoria flees the hotel to wander the street, and that's how the movie ends. Hardly a masterpiece...

androdros Read the title. (Why does review length even matter?)

emdeewee Victoria is a movie about the fact that is was shot in one take. This movie is about itself.That is what this movie is about. That is the subject matter. It is not a movie about a Spanish girl living in Berlin, about being estranged in modern modern city life, it is not about Berlin, not about making choices, it is not about life, death, conscience, it is about nothing, nothing other than; the fact that is was shot in one take.It gets five stars in major newspapers, for, as is the case with most films these days; it blows a screen of action and tension, the smoke being a decoy for substance.I remember this space movie with Sandra Bullock, Gravity; that was also supposedly a brilliant movie, since it was made with special techniques. But it was empty all the way through, and people fall for this stuff. This movie is the same thing.Characters are flat as can be, not well written, and the so called slow scenes on poetic music are not telling anything at all. For example: at a certain point our characters are in an elevator and all the dialogue, up to this point very dominant, is turned down to silence; we just see them talking and laughing, as nice music comes up and images seem to slow down. It is supposed to be telling of something, or to be dramatic. What is this telling us? Nothing. That is because there is no drama what so ever, that is accentuated here. It is simply hollow aesthetics.It would be so cool if this was a great movie. Because then the makers would have had their revenge over mainstream cinema, which they were trying to rebel against. A beautiful goal, full of heart and energy - but if the result is a flat movie, obsessed with form and without any substance what so ever, like in Gravity, then what do you have to show for? Where is this an argument for? You only prove yourself wrong, is what you do, and as we say in Holland; you throw in you own windows.I guess the process was exhilarating, which is a good reason to make anything of course.But if you want to watch a movie that is not about itself, and will be dear to you for years to come, because you love the characters, their struggle, their mannerisms, their pain and courage, then don't bother with this.If you want some kind of thriller, then go for it.