Embodied Thrills and Visceral Rollercoasters in Sebastian Schipper's Victoria
Victoria, Sebastian Schipper (2015)
Strobing lights and pulsing tech-house envelop Victoria as she moves through a cavernous, dilapidated club that could not be anywhere but Berlin. With a score produced by the house music coryphée DJ Koze, the eponymous film, Victoria, tracks—quite literally (as the film is shot in 'one-take')—this Neuberliner [1] as she gets dragged into a night that goes awry. Upon leaving the club, Victoria crosses paths with a roaming band of delirious locals, who she joins for an unforgettable night—unforgettable as much for its moments of beauty and romance as its distressing and horrifying episodes as their evening turns darker and darker. Beginning with intoxicated strolls through the city, soon the group becomes entangled with the underbelly of the city, dragged into a nightmarish bank heist. Victoria's nocturnal adventure through Berlin is gripping, dizzying and visceral.
Victoria's visceral-ness has much to do with its one-take set-up and unique camera handling. Since there are no cuts or switches between perspectives, the camera (often at eye-level) emulates an embodied physical and human presence. It is limited to one perspective, just like us. The camera moreover swirls like a drunkard, while a shallow depth of field mimics the myopia of intoxication. At times when the protagonists are in danger, the camera moves more angularly and deep focus cinematography emphasizes an acute awareness. Through its unblinking, unedited approach and its roaming camera movement, the film attempts to simulate the way that we would experience such a situation ourselves. Rather than a disembodied godlike entity, the camera emulates the lived reality of personhood.
The camera's embodied presence serves as a proxy not only for the spectator, but also for Victoria herself—correlating her perspective with ours. Like Victoria, we are plunged into a journey beyond our control. New in Berlin, Victoria unexpectedly falls into this pack of drunkards; she has a distinct lack of agency and lets herself be guided by them. Even after mentioning repeatedly that she has to go to work, Victoria never quite makes a decision nor breaks from them. Her obliviousness and foreignness underscores our status as spectators—the film unfolds without Victoria really being able to influence its trajectory, much like a spectator in the movies.
Victoria, Sebastian Schipper (2015)
By depriving its protagonist of agency, Victoria disrupts genre conventions—Victoria is neither a heroine nor anti-heroine. Usually, the hero(ine) is someone who overcomes an obstacle to get to a certain goal, an anti-hero someone who fails in that. However, Victoria is neither framed in terms of failure nor success. Rather than developing a form of agency, she is a product of her environment.
This lack of control, combined with the embodied camera perspective, makes the movie feel like a rollercoaster. As the camera swirls restlessly, there is no time for a contemplative, cognitive, distancing form of spectatorship. You move, viscerally and bodily, with the thrills of the evening as it unfolds. The spectator is drawn into the pro-filmic just like Victoria is drawn into the mischievous band of Berliners. By establishing such a close, embodied presence, the film invites a physical viewing experience. When watching it, my body jumped, squirmed, twisted and turned as the film's imagery found its way under my skin.
Victoria's particular form of spectatorship, moreover, underscores how perception is an embodied practice that involves feeling as much as knowing. This practice is not only cognitive, but also always happens in and through bodily responses and visceral emotions. Rather than 'gazing' at the film in the sense of invoking an omnipotent, ocular mastery, we are confronted with a vulnerable 'looking' wherein the film touches and moves the spectator [2]. This embodied sensation highlights one of the promises inherent to cinema—the promise of transporting us, sensuously, to a different world.
Victoria, Sebastian Schipper (2015)