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Victoria is a 2015 German drama film directed by Sebastian Schipper, starring Laia Costa and Frederick Lau. The film is noteworthy for its filming style of being shot in a single continuous take.

A young Spanish woman who has newly moved to Berlin finds her flirtation with a local guy turn potentially deadly as their night out with his friends reveals a dangerous secret.


This film provides examples of:

  • Bittersweet Ending: A little bit more bitter than sweet, also overlapping with No Ending due to many hanging threads. Victoria manages to make it out with the money, but Sonne, Blinker and Boxer are dead. Fuß will likely be interrogated by the police after waking up and Andi, the gangster who the group had to rob money in the first place, hasn't been repaid and threatened to take Victoria hostage if he wasn't. And Victoria never opened her cafe.
  • Children as Pawns: Sonne and Victoria hijack someone's baby to pose as innocent parents of a newborn on their way out of the police-surrounded building.
  • Death Is Dramatic: Victoria's dramatic crying fit when Sonne dies on the hotel bed.
  • The Driver: Victoria accepts this role after Sonne and Boxer implore her to, though she doesn't seem to understand the full implications until much later.
  • The Dulcinea Effect: Downplayed. Victoria falls into the group's life of crime rather easily (shoplifting with Sonne after knowing him for only a few minutes), agreeing to be their driver after knowing them for less than an hour. She also refuses to run or leave Sonne's side even after things go south.
  • Extremely Short Timespan: The film takes place over the course of only a couple of hours during a morning in Berlin.
  • Film Noir: To the extent that it was the closer for 2017's Noir City film festival.
  • Final Girl: Victoria comes out as the only survivor of the group, although an intoxicated Fuß, despite being rendered unconscious before the mission, is implied to still be alive after being found by the police.
  • Hassle-Free Hotwire: Boxer is an expert in hot-wiring cars. When the escape car turns off in front of the bank, he gets it to start up in a couple of seconds by fiddling around with the wires.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Boxer sacrifices himself in a police shootout so that Victoria and Sonne can escape.
  • Hope Spot: Victoria and Sonne escape the police and make it to a hotel with the money, only for Victoria tor realize that Sonne's been shot and is dying.
  • Idiot Ball: The group fails to ditch the car used in the crime (and even return to it) and leave one of their intoxicated co-conspirators inside, go out partying in a club after the robbery instead of laying low, and continue to stay together after it's obvious that the police are looking for a group of young male criminals.
  • I'm Cold... So Cold...: Sonne utters this line in his final moments at the hotel room.
  • The Mafiya: The group has to steal thousands of Euros to repay a gangster named Andi, who ensured Boxer's safety when the latter was in prison.
  • Mood Whiplash: Victoria and the guys party in a club after the robbery is apparently a success. A few minutes later, they realize that Fuss has been arrested, and spend the rest of the movie on the run and in danger.
  • My Car Hates Me: The getaway car stalls on Victoria at the exact moment she's supposed to be driving away.
  • Naked People Are Funny: Boxer and Blinker strip down in the club, leading to all of them being thrown out.
  • Off-into-the-Distance Ending: The movie ends with Victoria walking off into the streets of Berlin.
  • Oh, Crap!: Sonne and Victoria, when they realize the apartment they're hiding in has a baby in it.
  • The Oner: The movie's most memorable feature is being shot in a single take. It took three tries for the director to get it exactly the way he wanted it. They were able to secure funding for the movie by first shooting a version with ten-minute-long jump cuts to fall back on. Once that version was ready, they had the budget for three attempts on the originally planned single-take production.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: The four boys in the group are named Sonne, Boxer, Blinker and Fuß.
  • Police Are Useless: Averted. An hour after the coup, the police are already on the heroes' heels.
  • Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Averted. Much of the dialogue is improvised, and the characters often mumble, trip over their words, and repeat themselves.
  • Real Time: The film plays out in real time, naturally.
  • Secret Stab Wound: Sonne hides the gunshot he received in the shootout with the police until it overwhelms him at the hotel.
  • Sitting on the Roof: The boys' favorite place is on a building's rooftop.
  • Translation Convention: Mostly averted. Victoria speaks no German, but only Sonne has a firm grasp of English. The rest of the characters speak German, while Victoria occasionally lapses into Spanish.
  • Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Sonne mentions this when he and Victoria enter an elevator.
    Sonne: Now you have to be very silent, you know, because nobody talks in Germany in an elevator. It's forbidden.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Fuß vomits on the floor of the cafe.

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