Victoria is an interesting experiment. The camera work sort of reminds me of Irreversible but thank goodness there isn't a twenty minute rape scene to have to endure. As you know by now it's all one shot (not exactly presented in real time since about six hours of fiction time passes). It's an impressive feat but the end result is not much more than another shaky camera "found footage" film. Most shaky camera films last about ninety minutes but this one is nearly an hour more than that. Needless to say I was pretty dizzy and a bit nauseous by the end, like taking one too many rides on a roller coaster.
The acting is really good however the entire premise poses a problem. Victoria doesn't speak German and the guys don't speak Spanish so they have to speak to each other in the limited English that they know, compacting everything into the simplest sentences. It's like listening to baby-talk. Although this is actually a realistic portrayal of how they would need to communicate given the circumstance, needless to say, listening to two and a half hours of baby-talk begins to get awfully grating.
The plot itself is pretty minimalistic: woman parties with guys; guys rope her into some criminal activity; everything goes to hell. You can look at it two ways: that Victoria is completely naive and stupid for going along with it, or that she's a completely bored bad girl and this isn't the first time that she's intentionally gotten in with the wrong crowd merely for some cheap thrills. I take the latter stance since she was so gungho and didn't hesitate for a second before agreeing to go along with the nonsense these cheap, mentally thwarted two bit hoodlums were about to get themselves into; and the most horrible crime, the kidnapping of a baby, is actually HER idea. You wouldn't know it by how innocent and shy she acts, practically biting her nails in her cute little girl act, but she's a thrill seeker and these guys are nothing but a means to that end. There is foreshadowing from moment one when she tries to make the moves on the bartender only to get rejected; and further foreshadowing when she nearly allows herself to fall off a roof simply to feel the rush of fear it creates. So the movie does leave you with quite a bit to think about: who is really naive? Victoria or the idiots that allowed Victoria to be their enabler in a doomed night of insanity? Would these guys be alive at the end of the night if they never met Victoria?
But with all that going for it, ultimately Victoria is too long and too shaky--these are the flaws you can expect when there is absolutely no editing done whatsoever.
The acting is really good however the entire premise poses a problem. Victoria doesn't speak German and the guys don't speak Spanish so they have to speak to each other in the limited English that they know, compacting everything into the simplest sentences. It's like listening to baby-talk. Although this is actually a realistic portrayal of how they would need to communicate given the circumstance, needless to say, listening to two and a half hours of baby-talk begins to get awfully grating.
The plot itself is pretty minimalistic: woman parties with guys; guys rope her into some criminal activity; everything goes to hell. You can look at it two ways: that Victoria is completely naive and stupid for going along with it, or that she's a completely bored bad girl and this isn't the first time that she's intentionally gotten in with the wrong crowd merely for some cheap thrills. I take the latter stance since she was so gungho and didn't hesitate for a second before agreeing to go along with the nonsense these cheap, mentally thwarted two bit hoodlums were about to get themselves into; and the most horrible crime, the kidnapping of a baby, is actually HER idea. You wouldn't know it by how innocent and shy she acts, practically biting her nails in her cute little girl act, but she's a thrill seeker and these guys are nothing but a means to that end. There is foreshadowing from moment one when she tries to make the moves on the bartender only to get rejected; and further foreshadowing when she nearly allows herself to fall off a roof simply to feel the rush of fear it creates. So the movie does leave you with quite a bit to think about: who is really naive? Victoria or the idiots that allowed Victoria to be their enabler in a doomed night of insanity? Would these guys be alive at the end of the night if they never met Victoria?
But with all that going for it, ultimately Victoria is too long and too shaky--these are the flaws you can expect when there is absolutely no editing done whatsoever.