ADiff review: Victoria is a breathlessly exciting German drama

The ‘continuous shot’ gimmick fits seamlessly into a hurtling story

Victoria
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Director: Sebastian Schipper
Cert: Club
Genre: Action
Starring: Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski, Burak Yigit, Max Mauff
Running Time: 2 hrs 18 mins

Light House, Saturday 27th, 6pm, 138 min

And we have another answer to the trivia question that also yields Mike Figgis's Timecode and Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark. Whereas Hitchcock had to fake his one feature-long "continuous" shot in Rope, today's film-makers have the technical ability to make it happen for real.

Impressively, Sebastian Schipper manages to fit the gimmick to the material with utter seamlessness in this breathlessly exciting German drama.

Laia Costa plays a Spanish woman who, when working in cafe, meets up with a quartet of louts who draw her into criminal chaos.

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It is hard, in the opening act, to avoid considering the hugely complex logistics, but the hurtling story soon takes over. The faint awareness that the shoot could fall apart at any moment adds one more, super-conscious level of tension to an already nail-biting experience.

Costa carries a film that crosses genres with great confidence. Why place such restrictions on the film-making process? Nobody forced Keats to write sonnets, you know.

Can't see this? Try Miles Ahead, in which Don Cheadle plays Miles Davis. Cineworld, Saturday, 8.30pm, 100min.

Donald Clarke

Donald Clarke

Donald Clarke, a contributor to The Irish Times, is Chief Film Correspondent and a regular columnist