What a perfect day at the movies.
I'd have read about Victoria before, but I didn't stop to read the full article. I'd rather not know about a film before seeing it, and that's why I try to focus on my feelings and experience with a story here on Omad, in order not to spoil your own experience, in case you're reading about a movie that you haven't seen before. The only thing I knew about it was that it is a 134 minute only take. A whole movie without a cut is something we should see, for sure.
And the amazing thing here is that we forget about it after good minutes of paying too much attention to it and get in right on the story. The characters grow on us, the plot gets better and better, until we almost forget where we are. It is uncomfortable, suspenseful, weird and absolutely amazing, I thought. During the final credits, I accessed imdb to read more about it, because its production must have been surreal.
The cameraman here is my favorite person in the movie's world right now. Crazy, resourceful, brilliant guy. The whole crew is madly good, actually.
One special feature turned the experience of this film even better: the auditorium is an old friend of mine. I grew up near Cine Brasilia, a great theater in town, but awfully underused. It is getting better after it undergone some renovations, though. But I cannot forget how it was a part of my life and my discovering what movies mean to me.
When I was a kid, I used to play on its grounds - there were a modern seating hall outside it, great for makeup castles and battlefields. Once, the girl in the box office let me get inside for free, and I runned around this big empty room at the sound of Janis Joplin.
A bit older, I used to go there with my friends for life to discover a world beyond the usual Hollywood productions. I forgot where I was during Birdy (1984), and at the end I was surprised to see that I was seated on a movie theater, realizing that I hadn't moved at all for the entire duration of Alan Parker film. Bauhaus singing Bela Lugosi's Dead on the opening of The Hunger (1983) was other unforgettable moment in my life. The whole theater in a deadly silence after the last scene in Léolo (1982) is still with me. As is still here the surreal feeling I had looking up at the sky after seeing Landscape in the Mist (1988). By the way, I'm a bit afraid to see it again, even knowing that I must.
At the last year of high school, we passed through a long teacher's strike. The labor union meetings were placed in this theater. My friends and me used to attend it (don't ask me why), and it was on one of those occasions that my daring friend Sil took The Hotel New Hampshire's (1984) poster from the wall to give it to me (I had dared any of them to do that :). We loved this movie som much, and the proof of this funny transgression is still on my home's wall, reminding me of those great happy and funny days.
After this brief summary, maybe you'll be able to get why I had the feeling of being back home. An amazing and surprising film showing in my favorite movie theater from my childhood and teen years. A special occasion for sure.
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| Victoria. Directed by Sebastian Schipper. With: Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski. Writers: Sebastian Schipper, Olvia Neergaard-Holm, Eike Frederik Schulz. Germany, 2015, 138 min., Color (Cinema). |
PS: After one year of first meeting Downton Abbey with my mother during a quiet time together, we finally started to watch its last season. At the beginning of 2015, the rest of the family was out of town and we had the whole days just to ourselves. We chose to spend it with Downton, an usual way to my mom. She has a irrational dislike to TV shows, but was immediately addicted to Downtown. After 6 or 7 episodes on a roll, she would stare me and say: don't ever do that again to me :) The new season is not so good as the others, I think, there's a big sense of anticlimax here, maybe. But it is still a nice company to a not so quiet days anymore.
See, these things are funny. I actually thought the whole "single shot" theme got in the way of the story at times. Although it's an admirable cinematography trick to achieve, and quite exhilarating to witness, the story itself didn't do it for me. I thought it was too dragged on, and I couldn't built sympathy for the characters. In fact, I couldn't help but feel annoyed by Victoria. But I'm glad you had that awesome experience with it at Cine Brasilia, your favorite theater from your early years :D
ReplyDelete[ j ]
You know, I thought Victoria was pretty annoying at first. I couldn't relate to her or to the guys or even to what I was seeing. But slowly I started to get them, and I grew warm to them, especially to Victoria, a resilient girl that goes ahead without any other reason than what she feels at the moment. And Laia Costa performance gets better and better as the story grows in dramaticity. The single shot thing has limitations, of course, but I thought that in this case it was smartly inserted into the story.
DeleteBut as you've said, my friend, is all a matter of getting into it or not. I was a bit suspicious at first, but I forgot all about it as the film developed before my eyes :)