"Is Mephisto a devil?"
"It's the devil."
"I like devils."
"I would also like."
Victoria finished a piece of Liszt's "Mephisto Waltz" and told Sana about her past experience of studying piano in art school, with a bit of sadness and unwillingness in her tone. After sixteen years of study, seven hours of hard training a day, in the end, he was dismissed because he failed to meet the high standards of the teacher. At this moment, she is sitting in a coffee shop where she works part-time. It has been three months since she came to Berlin from her hometown Spain. She can't speak a few words of German and has no friends.
Sana is a young man in Berlin whom Victoria had known for less than an hour. She was approached by Sana and three other young men (Baucus, Brinker, Foss) at the door of the nightclub. Four late-night, half-drunk young men ask Victoria to join their party. Although a bit full of mouth running on the train, it can be seen that there is no malice, but it makes the girl in a foreign country feel a little fresh and interesting. Sana is like their "Squad Leader", and she is also better in English, so she speaks the most with Victoria. They stole a few beers from the grocery store and chatted for a while on the rooftop of a small building. It wasn't until Victoria remembered that she was going to the coffee shop where she was working to prepare for the opening, and she asked Sana to send her back. Victoria said goodbye to Sana after talking about the past, and was about to clean up the shop when Sana and his three friends suddenly came back. The night was destined to be blurry and dangerous.
Sebastian Spur's "Victoria" was a blockbuster at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival, winning the Best Cinematography award. The most prominent feature of this film is the use of the "one shot to the end" shooting method, and unlike "Birdman", which was highly praised at the Oscars in the same year and belonged to "seamless stitching", it is a real one shot to the end.
Whether the so-called "long shot" or "one shot to the end" is a dazzling skill has always been a controversial topic. Personal understanding is that maybe from the time this technique was born, it was not just needed. Compared with another lens language "montage", it does have natural shortcomings in narrating the plot and shaping the characters. At the same time, it has extremely high requirements on the director's scene scheduling ability. Each scene needs to be carefully arranged and arranged. , the slightest carelessness will give up all previous efforts, which is a thankless job. However, film is an art after all, and practitioners will want to experience such an adventure and shooting experience. After all, formal perfection is the supreme pursuit of every "artist".
Of course, in addition to witnessing the talents of directors and photographers (physical, mental, and collaborative), "One Shot to the End" also has its own uniqueness in practical application. Taking "Victoria" as an example, in just over two hours before dawn, one woman and four men went from acquaintance to acquaintance, and experienced thrilling events together. From life to death, it seems that there is no close-fitting shooting than "one shot to the end". It's more of a way to highlight the dramatic tension of the story.
The film is 134 minutes long and involves a total of 22 scene transitions. The camera design and shot scheduling are perfect, and even the full plot makes "one shot to the end" almost invisible. Since "one shot to the end" cannot quickly describe the character through edited behavior and language, more continuous events or details are needed to construct the character image. In the first hour of the film, the director basically used it to pave the way for the characters, which may make the audience feel a little impatient, but on the other hand, it seems more real and more immersive. Victoria and Sana and others have gone from testing each other on the street to establishing initial trust on the rooftop, and then to the love between Victoria and Sana in the cafe, especially through the heroine's expression after playing the piano Changes and mood swings made the audience have a better understanding of her.
"Victoria" is reminiscent of another German film, "Ah, Boy" (for the film review, see "Ah, Boy": A Day in the Life of Wenqing Nick ), and the theme is also confused and helpless youth. But comparing the two, the former is more crazy and dangerous. After an hour of false warmth, the silent night was suddenly broken by a crime, which not only caught the characters off guard, but also stunned the audience. Sauna's friend Box had once squatted in the classroom, where he was taken care of by a certain gang boss, but there was always a time to repay the debt of favor, and the one who should come will still come.
That night, the boss told Box to bring three people to the appointment, because Foss was already drunk, so he had to call Victoria to make up the number. The four unknown people didn't know until they met with the boss that the other party wanted them to rob a private bank. Sana and the others immediately regretted it, but under the coercion of force, they had to bite the bullet. The ignorance, fearlessness and sadness of youth are vividly displayed here. After robbing the bank, they even went to the bar to celebrate wildly. They didn't flee into a residential area until they were chased by the police after going out. Brink was arrested on the spot. Shot to death, Baucus was injured and arrested and died on the way to the hospital. Although Victoria and Sauna slipped through and hid in a nearby hotel room, Sauna, who was shot, did not make it until the ambulance arrived. Absolutely, like a nightmare.
In the film, we can clearly find that, as a girl, Victoria is the coolest one. When they were forced to rob a bank, she volunteered to help drive the car; when Brinker flinched in fear and Sana and Box were at risk of infighting, she calmly comforted and encouraged; When she was in the house, she was the one who came up with a way to escape in disguise; when the hotel did not have a passport to register and open a room, she also got the key by making up a story. Even though Sana's death broke her heart in the end, she still regained her calm in a short time and walked out of the hotel with the stolen money.
It seems a bit exaggerated, but because of the foreshadowing of the characters in advance, it is not surprising. The grievances she received in the art school in her early years were the source of Victoria's character, which was full of repression and urgently needed to be released. The lonely and disciplined working life in Berlin was the catalyst for her desire to take risks and even look forward to "destruction". It further boosted her courage. Remember the "Mephisto Waltz" she played and the "Like the Devil" dialogue? This night, she seemed to be Faust, and everything she faced was the temptation of Mephisto, and the line between reason and impulse was a fine line.
From the perspective of time, the actual time of the filming is from 4:30 to 7:00 in the morning. Because of the continuity of "one shot to the end", the time of the film and the real time are roughly the same, but because of the rich content of the film, plus The ingenious scene scheduling lengthened the audience's psychological time, and it was not until finally Victoria walked down the street with the money that the audience realized that this series of madness was just over two hours. The streets of Berlin at 7 o'clock are empty and empty, and the devil is gone with the dawn. I wonder if our Victoria has woken up, and the road ahead is still confused and confused.
♑
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