This year has given us plenty of extended one-shot sequences, from the incredible boxing match in Creed to the slightly pointless long take in Legend. Oscar-winner Birdman, in particular, showed how doing an entire film as one digitally-stitched shot can put us vividly in the driver’s seat of a dazed and confused mind. But this bold German crime drama uses one ACTUAL take to bind you into the seat of a locked vehicle going downhill, and the results are more thrilling than any of those films before it.
The opening 40-or-so minutes set up the stakes with young, naïve Victoria making drunken friends with a sweet-natured band of blokes in the early hours of the morning. The dedicated actors all drive the camaraderie by delivering superb performances that tap into any memorable night you may have had making temporary mates in the blink of an eye. It’s a grounded kind of human whimsy that plenty of ‘chance encounter’ indie films fail to capture, but Victoria exhales it superbly. It all adds up when chaos reigns.
When the one-take novelty settles in, that’s when Victoria begins her sudden spiral into criminal activities. From that point, there’s no escape, there’s no turning back, and there’s no cut-to-the-next-scene for the audience to rely on when things get unbearably tense. It’s one hell of a filmmaking feat that serves a purpose and pays off tremendously. Just allow some suspension of disbelief to hurdle the film’s tiny lapses of logic.
Other Thrillers With Awesome Long Takes: Gravity, Rope, Touch of Evil
