What is it about: Victoria( Laia Costa) is an exchange student from Madrid, living in Berlin, who one night outside a nightclub meets a group of German boys, and decides to spend the rest of the night with them. What starts as one of those awkward meet ups that lots of girls experience in a foreign city, Where you from? Let me show you around, ends in a full blown heist movie.
Why should you watch it: First of all, let me warn you that although Victoria speaks with the boys in English, the German part has no subtitles on iTunes. They should fix it ASAP. But it kind of worked in putting you in the position of Victoria, who also can't understand a word these guys are are saying to each other.
Now that we got that out of the way, the movies sells itself on the premise, you can call it a gimmick, of being shot all in real time and in one continuous uninterrupted take. A very long OK Go clip.
The movie was rejected Toronto and not screened at Sundance because they didn't believe it was really filmed in one take. It took three tries and was shot small hours in Berlin around 4:30am on April 27, 2014, finishing at about 7:00am.
If you are not excited by that, or have no idea why its so difficult to do, skip the movie. Large part of the exuberance and fun of Victoria is the realization that those actors and cameraman just can't stop.
I didn't love it, but I liked it. It has the freshness of A bout du souffle mixed with the inventiveness of Lola rent, ( which also took place in Berlin) mixed with some Brando references( its lead actor Frederick Lau bears a striking resemblance) in Last tango in Paris (no, no butter in this one!) For this kind of movie it is extremely difficult to give the main characters an arc, and that is essentially what is missing. Victoria's choices of the night are very questionable, and in the end we have no idea why she did make them.
But the story itself has a nice flow to it, and a exhilarating third act. Kudos to the cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen for pulling it off!
If you are not sure, see the trailer, but I would just skip it and let the movie surprise me.
