Rent Victoria (2015)

AMATEURISH SINGLE-SHOT BORE - Victoria review by Alphaville

Well, it's a cheap and fast way of making a film. Shoot two hours of footage in a single handheld take and don't edit it. Sure, it's a technical tour de force. So what? Improvisation rarely works with actors and even more rarely with the camera. For half an hour Victoria wanders the streets of Berlin with a bunch of losers. Yawn, yawn. Best of luck sticking with it this far before any plot sets in. It's impossible to care about any of the characters, even the photogenic but gullible and irritatingly stupid Victoria.

After a whole hour she joins the losers in a heist Some frenetic home-movie wobble-cam (the worst since Blair Witch) is used to mimic tension but this only increases the arbitrariness of the image and makes the screen even harder to watch. Call it cinema verite, call it guerrilla filmmaking, it's still like watching the home movie of someone who can't hold a camera steady. And there's still another hour to sit through. All-in-all, 132 minutes you'll never get back.

Ignore the unaccountably good reviews this style-free so-called film somehow garnered. Some critics would probably see the emperor's clothes. It is simply one terrible home movie, like a talentless version of Run Lola Run. Watch that again instead.

Dire - Victoria review by CB

I persevered for an event-free 20 minutes, then gave up out of sheer boredom. The actors seemed to be enjoying themselves, not too sure why.

So good - Victoria review by AM

Shot in one take. 4 of the 5 reviews mention this. It seems to be the only thing anyone knows. It's an outstanding technical achievement (this isn't a film set in one place, it moves location constantly, and the camera has to move with it), but it's also a great decision as it helps drive the film forward, and to lock my attention in. There are, unquestionably, one or two points where the decisions Victoria makes are odd (particularly early on) and I knocked a star off for that.

Alphaville mentioned Run Lola Run - also a really good film, and with undoubted similarities. Watch both.