So, I watched 'Victoria' and I have mixed feelings about it. For those of you who don't know, 'Victoria' is a German heist movie filmed all in one take - quite the impressive selling point if you ask me. Credit where credit is due, this film is nothing short of an achievement. The level of planning, timing, and coordination that it took to make this one-shot movie is absolutely awe-inspiring. There were several shots in which the camera was behind a ledge, and when the camera moves up to see what's behind the ledge, in the background, we see an action taking place at that exact moment. It's moments like those that really show that talent involved in making this film.

Now, although this ambitious single-take selling point is extremely impressive, it is just one aspect of the film. And as much as I loved and enjoyed the movie, there were a few aspects that were kind of lacking - one of those aspects being post-production audio. The film had a good soundtrack, and for the most part I didn't mind the extra music being there. But in one scene, instead of the music accompanying the sounds in the film, it literally replaced them. All of a sudden, at a very unfitting moment, the film decided that what the characters were saying wasn't really important. It kind of seemed like the music was only there as a cover-up. Maybe one of the actors flubbed their lines, maybe they couldn't fit the mic guy in the elevator; it just seemed really weird and out of place for the characters' voices to suddenly be muted.

Closer to the middle of the movie, we hear this inexplicable post-production nose-breathing sound. It happens three times in the span of less than fifteen minutes and then never happens again the entire movie. The main character's in a vehicle and all the sudden we can hear this really loud breathing. My initial thought was, "Is that the cameraman?", followed by, "Oh, maybe there's someone in there with her." Then she gets out of the vehicle, and a few minutes later the same thing happens again. It happens when the camera moves closer to her face and then stops when it moves away - At which point I think, "Oh, it's just a really bad foley to accentuate how intense this is for her." But then the third time it happens, the camera's nowhere near her and she shouldn't reasonably be making those noises. It's confusing, distracting, unfitting, and completely unnecessary, And all it would have taken to fix it would be to just not add it into the movie.

Later there's a sleeping baby in a crib. Later on, the camera's not looking at the baby and we hear it screaming and crying; and within seconds, as the camera looks back towards the baby, it is sleeping again, making it obvious that it was just a poorly done sound effect. Again, something that easily could have been fixed by just not adding it into the movie. And last but not least, the absolute worst culprit of post-production audio cheating was the piano scene. With the short clip of her playing piano in the trailer, it left me thinking one thing: if what she winds up playing is actually impressive and complicated, then that'll add a lot to the movie. I mean, if it takes a certain level of coordination and you fuck it up, then you have to start the whole movie over. So this was a scene that I was particularly looking forward to. And unfortunately it is some of the worst fake piano playing ever. You realize that you actually need to press down on the keys for it to make noise, right? This scene clearly only exists to impress the audience by having us think that she's actually playing, so having it cheated this poorly is kind of disappointing. And the way that this scene pretends to be doing something impressive is just misleading and dishonest.

Another issue that I had with this movie is that these are the stupidest characters ever of all time. Not going to spoil anything, but there are moments in this film where the characters are so stupid that they become unrelatable. And then if something bad happens to them, all I can think is, "Well, what did you think would happen?" Still, for the most part, this was a very entertaining and well executed movie. Every single performance on screen was absolutely fantastic, and that, combined with the pressure of not really wanting to mess up your lines, had me impressed, to say the least. Yes, it's flawed. But I think its achievements outweigh those flaws, so I would recommend checking this one out and seeing for yourself.

I'm rating this so highly but I'll most likely never re-watch this film? It's truly an experience, and I'm glad I saw in the cinema because you have to be fully concentrated and also in the mood for this trip. The film is so long, and it felt so long, because you were right there where everything happened. But despite being so long, I can't imagine how they could've shortened it down? They could have ended it at the party before the police came, but the part with the police and shit... It was breathtaking, it was so cool. I need a behind-the-scenes thing, or at least a really long interview with the directors, because the amount of work this must've taken.... It renders me speechless.
Now one of the reviewers commented on the sound editing: personally I felt that all choices were intentional and the ambience music didn't annoy me. In fact I found it nice that that we didn't have to hear them talk all the time, since the film can be very tiring (because of the one-shot effect)

tldr: A very cool and breathless movie, technically great, however slow moving and long (as a person who hates long movies this didn't bother me though)

The only thing is that I wish we had learned more about Victoria. There was the scene in the cafe, but that was briefly. I wish it had been expanded upon, even just a bit.

Before you watch this movie, a tip: if you don't understand German, watch it without subtitles, it's a completely different experience.

[spoiler]I felt like I watched two different movies. At first I started to watch with full subtitles, so by the time I reached 1 hour into the movie, while they were rehearsing the heist, I thought the movie was pretty average, other than the exceptional one-take aspect that we all know about. So I thought to myself: what if I watch it like Victoria? That whole heist rehearsal scene would be completely different and confusing, which I think is something that Victoria might be thinking and feeling. So I look it up online and saw that some people recommend watching without subtitles. So I started to watch the film again, and it was nothing like the first time. Sure, you don't understand 80% of the dialog, but you get something else, you get to experience what Victoria is going through, she also don't understand German, so other than the Sonne translation, you have no clue about what is happening, and to me that's the best part of this movie, to experience exactly what Victoria is going through, to discover with her what is happening, to feel confused just like she is feeling, trying to understand things through their body language, through some words that are similar to English. It gave to me a whole new perspective. But since I only discovered this halfway through the movie, the experience was kinda ruined for me, so for that I'll only give 7/10[/spoiler]