Table of Content

Table of Content.........................................................................................................................2
4. Slow Cinema...........................................................................................................................4
4.1 History of Slow Cinema....................................................................................................5
4.2 Narrative Structure............................................................................................................6
4.3 The Creation and Characteristics......................................................................................8
4.4 Filmic Narrative Structures and Psychological Aspects of the Plan Sequence...............10
4.5 Dramaturgy......................................................................................................................10
4.6 Hermeneutics...................................................................................................................12
5. The Berlin School using the example of Victoria.................................................................13
6. Film Analysis Victoria..........................................................................................................14
6.1 Analysis of the plot.........................................................................................................16
6.2 The Time (Tempus) of Narrative....................................................................................17
6.3. Victoria's motivation......................................................................................................17
6.4 Filming............................................................................................................................18
6.5. Sound Design.................................................................................................................19
6.6. Lighting design...............................................................................................................19
6.7. Analysis of the film tone................................................................................................20
6.8 Analysis of the drama......................................................................................................21
6.9 Improvisation and deliberate mistakes............................................................................22
Conclusion................................................................................................................................23
References.................................................................................................................................24
4. Slow Cinema
Slow cinema, which has developed out of defiance of mainstream American cinema over the
last 20 years, is a narrative form that goes hand in hand with the planned sequence. The
"cinema of slowness," as categorized by Michel Ciment in 2003, is a unique type of reflective
art that serves to slow the pace, to displace the dominant momentum of narrative causality
(Ciment & Niogret, 2003). The emphasis on stillness, restrained storytelling, and every day
are essential components of Slow Cinema. One should consider the long takes as a unique
formal and structural design of aesthetics and slowness. Like the planned sequence, Slow
Cinema forces us to retreat from the culture of speed and adjust to a narrative calmer rhythm
of dramaturgy. Freed from the norms of American cinema, the viewer enters into a free and
serene form of perception, allowing them to focus on details that are often overlooked in a
compressively edited film. Dramaturgically, the usual drama, consistency, and psychological
motivation are loosened, and content, presentation, and rhythm are placed on an equal footing.

To properly understand slow cinema - in fact, this is a fundamental criterion for understanding
works of art in different forms - it is important to examine the close interrelationship of the
basic elements that make up films. Otherwise, one may fall into the trap of perceiving these
elements as choices that only emphasize the directors' style. Being able to sense the harmony
of this relationship network also means experiencing the films created with a slowness
orientation that cancels the classical narrative methods for the benefit of showing the
existence of embodied subjects in their entirety. Therefore, we aim to trace this orientation,
make visible the meaning and experience that the elements create together, and analyze the
original expressions of the movements of embodied subjects in the world.

These tendencies, expressed with the definition of slowness or contemplation in contemporary

cinema, have been discussed in academic circles, multi-authored cinema blogs, or cinema
magazines in recent years and generally agreed on the most distinctive characteristics. The
main and most vital of these features are; non-dramatic story setup, characters free of
psychological downloads, use of dialogue that does not contribute to story progression and
does not reference character development, unpretentious acting (mostly non-professional
actors), use of continuous-long shots that establish the movement of the characters and the
integrity of the landscapes for the benefit of a Spatio-temporal continuity, still or the camera
that moves very little, the simplicity of focusing on the existence of the subjects and the
material features of the landscapes, the silence of the subjects and the use of atmospheric
sound that reinforces the realism, etc. such features.
In this cinematic understanding, the orientation to the subject/body focus was made possible
because the emphasis of the film and the scenes was shaped in the focus of the body and that
these characteristic features emphasized the nature of embodied existence. Julio Bezerra
(2013), emphasizing that there has always been a desire for the body in cinema, states that this
desire in contemporary cinema transforms into the expressionist body that fills the space to
come to terms with its own meaning: “This is not the perception of a body by setting up
various special effects developed with many digital media tools. but it is the definition of a
body that has become the subject of discourse” (Bezerra, 2013, p. 78). As emphasized by the
author, the body has come to the forefront by turning into the film's content, the basic element
that forms the main spine of the film. In the next stages, we will examine the elements that
make slow films possible under different titles and with examples from different films and
examine the meaningful integrity created by the organic bond between them and the role these
elements play in creating the body emphasis of the films.

4.1 History of Slow Cinema

In 2003, within the scope of the 46th San Francisco Film Festival, French film critic Michel
Ciment gave a speech revealing the current state of cinema. According to Ciment, who
evaluates today's cinema, "extremely noisy films decorated with eye-catching images" occupy
commercial halls (Ciment,2003a). In the part of his speech that concerns slow cinema and can
be regarded as a precursor to slow cinema discussions, Ciment states that American cinema
has begun to be shot with the logic of computer games (with exceptions) and emphasizes the
average shooting lengths that Geoff King compares in his 2002 book New Hollywood
Cinema, and emphasizes that the impatientness of the cinema audience is reduced by the
average shot. says that it has reduced its length (Ciment,2003a). According to Ciment;

[...] impatient television and movie audiences demand films bombarded with images and
sounds, while some directors reacting to this technology fetishism have chosen to make
slower and more suggestive films. How can Stanley Kubrick's films 2001: A Space Odyssey
(2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968), Barry Lyndon (1975) and Eyes Wide Shut (Eyes Wide Shut,
1999), which are considered the antidote to classic Hollywood cinema, have a provocative
slowness? these directors prefer to make films that describe the situation of their characters
rather than focusing on the events (Ciment,2003a).

Five years after Michel Ciment's speech, Mathew Flanagan focuses on the aesthetics of
slowness in today's cinema in his blog “16:9”” (Flanagan, 2008). According to Flanagan,
these films emphasize long shots, a simple storytelling, calmness and everyday life (Flanagan,
2008).

4.2 Narrative Structure

The "non-dramatic narrative structure", which is the first characteristic feature of slow
cinema, can be understood more easily as it basically differs from the classical cinema
structure. First of all, although the concept of classical cinema is an established one, it should
be reminded that we mean "classic Hollywood cinema" here. As David Bordwell and Kristin
Thompson point out (Bordwell & Thompson, 2011, p. 102), “Historically, fictional
filmmaking has often been dominated by a single tradition of narrative form” (Bordwell &
Thompson, 2011, p. 102), although the number of possible narratives in cinema is endless.
This Hollywood tradition is also referred to as a classic because of its dominance, and
although we are encountering new narrative methods, classical cinema narrative still
continues its dominance as the dominant style in the mainstream cinemas of almost all
countries. Bordwell (1979) emphasized that cinematic representation in classical cinema is
motivated by the narrative form of storytelling (Bordwell, 1979, p. 57). In this sense, the basic
structure of the film production process is an effort to create a predetermined story structure
throughout the whole process from the first ideas about the film to the writing of the script
and the production of the film. While Bordwell (1979) talks about the method of this narrative
structure in practice, he especially emphasizes cause-effect logic and narrative parallelism and
states that these two create “a narrative that reflects its actions through its psychologically
defined, goal-oriented characters” (Bordwell, 1979, p. 57). “Narrative time and space are
constructed to explain the chain of cause and effect” (Bordwell, 1979, p. 57).
Since Bordwell states that it does not include the features of the classical narrative that we
have emphasized, slow cinema also shares some common features with art cinema (here, we
mean the modern cinema that emerged with Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave).
Returning to Bordwell's definitions, the destruction of the cause-effect logic and thus the
loosening-cancellation of the narrative structure that provides the continuity of the film
basically grounds a "storyless", in other words, "non-dramatic" state for the purpose of
emphasizing the pure existence of the subject, freed from excesses. This justification
highlights one of the most important features of the slowness orientation. Of course, other
features can only be explained in the most efficient way in connection with this situation.
When Harry Tuttle (2007) expressed different categories to indicate the general characteristics
of this orientation, the first of these was “plotlessness”12 and the author opened this definition
with the following terms: “drama without obvious (foreground), beginningless, inconclusive,
open-ended final, non-progressive, absence of major narrative tricks (flashback, multi-layered
stories), simplicity, atmospheric depiction, separation of protagonist(s) from background
action, absence of imminent threat, absence of external forces suppressing the protagonist(s)”
(Tuttle, 2007, para. 4). While their presence and level of presence are different in each film,
these definitions are generally quite apt and help us understand the general structure of films.
We would like to draw particular attention to the interconnectedness of these features.
Throughout the film narrative, the characters, whether by coincidence or not, are not arranged
in the film narrative of any danger they fall into or the events that will lead them to take
serious actions, in short, the absence of dramatic events, basically, the narrative is based on
the original existence of the subjects, the place, instead of "events". and its relations with
other subjects. This uneventful situation naturally leads us to encounter "any" period in the
lives of the subjects without the need to justify the beginning and the end of the narrative.
These simple narratives, which are not motivated by dramatic events and do not have multi-
layered stories, thus turn their backs on the psychological development-transformation-based
arguments that classical cinema constructs for the characters.
Pedro Costa's films fully meet this characteristic. Costa's films, which have brought a unique
perspective to his cinema as a result of his collaboration with Cape Verdean immigrants living
in Portugal, do not have a story setup in the classical sense. For example, the movie In Vanda
´s Room (No Quarto da Vanda - 2000) is summarized in the IMDb database with the
following words: “The film follows the daily life and community of Vanda Duarte, a heroin
addict from Lisbon”13. Indeed, it is difficult to argue that the movie, which lasts 2 hours and
51 minutes, has a fuller story content than this description. Most of the scenes we watch are
long scenes where Vanda is chatting with her friend in the bedroom and using drugs. Costa's
Colossal Youth (Juventude Em Marcha - 2006) follows the character of Ventura and turns its
camera to the last remnants of the Cape Verdean slum where immigrants live and the mass
housing project where the immigrants started to move. The film focuses on Ventura's
relationship with these people; It doesn't have a clear beginning and end, or a narrative
through which the story progresses. The film, which is constructed as a directionless flow
mediated by Ventura between the expressionless mass housing spaces and the slum, is content
to observe Ventura's bodily movement and his relationship with the people around him.
Lithuanian Sharunas Bartas' films also contain an uneventful and directionless similarity to
Costa's films. Bartas, whose films can be shown among the important examples of slow
cinema, observed his subjects and their relations with other subjects and the environment they
live in, similar to other slow filmmakers, and took an attitude emphasizing their bodily
existence -especially their faces. Bartas, who produced his films in the post-Soviet period,
turns his camera to the lives of people from the former Soviet countries and observes the
changing living conditions after the end of this period. Renata Šukaitytė (2012) stated that one
of the director's early films, The Corridor (Koridorius - 1995), revealed the slowness and
complexity of the national reconciliation process in Lithuania after 1989 (p. 127). Bartas shot
The Corridor, in which he presents the impact of a period of social crisis on people, centered
on a long corridor that opens to many rooms. In this corridor, while the camera, which moves
at a very slow pace, observes the people behind different doors, the efforts of these people to
establish a relationship with each other are made visible. The transition between the calm and
quiet moments that show the subjects in their solitude, and the noisy and complex moments
where they all come together and try to have fun, allow us to witness the relationships that are
tried to be established and the efforts of people who are worn out both emotionally and
physically to hold on to life. Bartas' attitude is far from telling his story by focusing on a
subject he chooses from within the society. Even though some of these unnamed subjects,
especially a small child, appear in the frame more times, none of them become the main
character that the film focuses on. he is content with looking at the relations of melancholics
with each other, their bodies, and especially their faces. Images of dozens of people entering
the camera's frame seem to specifically avoid forming a coherent story.
4.3 The Creation and Characteristics
The non-dramatic structure of the narrative in slow cinema – quite different from the classical
narrative structure – is provided by the transformation of psychologically redefined, target-
oriented movie characters, and thus, the subjects of slow cinema whose bodily existence is
emphasized are encountered. Subjects are defined only by their momentary existence and
their non-meaningful movements in time-space, since the narrative does not have the
motivations to take them "forward" in the classical sense - more precisely, the subjects do not
have a destination to reach. Although the subjects in the films of artists who have adopted the
slowness orientation have quite common characteristics due to the emphasis on their bodies
and their central position in the films, we can detect that each director has a unique approach
to their subjects.
Although the subjects in the films of artists who have adopted the slowness orientation have
quite common characteristics due to the emphasis on their bodies and their central position in
the films, we can detect that each director has a unique approach to their subjects. Below are
photos of characters from some slow movies:
The Corridor

Colossal Youth
4.4 Filmic Narrative Structures and Psychological Aspects of the Plan Sequence
Bazin's work contains extraordinarily illuminating indications of the aesthetic peculiarities
and advantages that can result for the plan sequence when it is combined with depth of field.
These clues culminate in three theses that use every day psycho- logical insights from the
1950s, but touch on problems that could hardly be formulated before the cognitive turn of this
discipline. Successful attempts to approach the complex phenomenon with its difficult effects
with the help of newer psychological concepts are unknown to me. It is therefore by no means
to be expected that empirical studies will be conducted soon. Nevertheless, this chapter would
like to stimulate a further psychological interpretation of the plan sequence "If the essence of
an event depends on the simultaneous presence of two or more action factors, it is forbidden
to cut" (Langford, 2008, p.84).

4.5 Dramaturgy
In order to find out to what extent the planned sequence represents an experimental form of
work or a purposefully used dramaturgical device, the term "dramaturgy" must first be
defined. Dramaturgy is a technique of storytelling. It also poses the question of what wants to
be told, what the topic is, and what the plot is. How it affects the viewer is also particularly
important.

"Film dramaturgy provides the principles for composing a story in the most "effective" way
possible ("Film und Dramaturgie," 2013). In a film, the narrative channels available are image
and sound, with the tonal level in turn subdivided into speech, sounds and music. This results
in a wide range of narrative possibilities that liberate the medium of film from all spatial and
temporal boundaries. Dramaturgy counters this principled boundlessness with the demand for
selection and effectiveness." ("Film and dramaturgy," n.d.) Through various situations or
means of design, a rising tension can be felt in the film despite the planned sequence. There
can be the urge to want to break out of the scene, but since the viewer is part of the hand-held
camera, he must "face what is happening."

Influencing human behavior, the reality of the narration and the stories about the life that have
been experienced or lived on the individual strengthen the possible bond between them. Even
if they are fantastic stories, the characters in the fiction, even the possibility of reminding us
of a person or character that may appear in our lives at any moment, can enable the audience
to keep their bond with the film strong. To emulate is to dramatize. In other words, it is
explained as all of the methods used for dramatic processing of an event, situation, fictional or
real story by making it arouse excitement in the audience. Narration is the whole that develops
within the cause and effect dimensions and tells the events in a chain development depending
on this theme. In the film, the successive narration of the events constitutes the narration. The
plot of each movie is different. The dramatization with the narrative style of the created story
gives a general idea about the event. Narration is created with different approaches and
stories, as well as adaptations and inspiration from real life. Dramatization adapts reality
according to certain rules. Often the source of the rules is classical theatre. When we
dramatize a work, we actually deliberately deviate to better focus on reality for a specific
purpose. We look for truths that are invisible at first glance, by going under the truth and
behind it. This is never scientific, but dramatic and artistic (Foss, 2012, p.158).

The reflection of the written story and the prepared fiction is reality. Reality is reminded;
however, everything proceeds in a controlled manner. A plot that does not go beyond the
fiction is reflected. Thus, with the introduction, development and conclusion sections, it is
presented to the audience as if it is a section of the life that is intended to be conveyed. The
audience should be able to find the stage of transferring their own experiences or thoughts in
the dream world to the real world in the movie they watch in the cinema. Thus, the distinction
between reality and fiction can change place during the movie watching session, and even the
difference can disappear completely.

This is the relationship arising from the difference and similarity between reality and
dramatization.

The techniques used by the only real cinema noticed, do not decrease its popularity, on the
contrary, they increase it in certain periods. By using technological possibilities, many
product and actor profiles are always protected, whether with a simple ambiance or a very
striking stage performance, by combining story-space. The dramaturgical approach
communicates with the theater and then with the cinema on a metaphorical level: Social
reality resembles theatre, resembles film, can resemble the lines of a novel page. As such, it
remains indifferent to the narrative content and artistic dimensions of some films. The
relationship between social theory and film is as ambiguous as the relationship between
fiction and non-fiction, representation and reality. By questioning films, it is necessary to
apply a cinematic social theory that tries to go beyond the binary opposition between social
reality and fiction, and thus (re)conceptualizes its subject as a "socio-fiction" (Diken and
Laustsen, 2010, p.27). Fiction and fantasy are inspired by and carry a piece of reality. It is
important that two different realities that existed on the same planet, namely the cinematic
reality and the real reality, are continued together. Because reality can be perceived and
interpreted differently depending on the place and period. Dramatization through films is a
useful tool for sociology in that it appeals to imagination, sense, creativity without limiting
itself to representations. Such an attempt often makes it possible to experience intensities,
affects that cannot be conceptualized analytically or analyzed empirically. In fact,
dramatization can become one of the most creative aspects of the social theory-making
process, a moment in which the sociologist is transformed through his encounter with cinema.
In this context, cinema is interesting for sociology in terms of its dramatization capacity and
the "actualization" of sociological ideas about certain sensations (Diken and Laustsen, 2010:
35).

4.6 Hermeneutics
Exceeding the length of attitude necessary for the reception of a picture generates referential
redundancies, whose potential functions are extraordinarily manifold and, due to their
contextuality, are not accessible to systematic recording. First of all, they can be described in
general terms as the perceptual behavior of an image subject who cannot 'tear himself away'
from his object of perception, a gesture that also plays a special role in figural perspective
images as a mediator of figural gaze behavior and therein of inwardness (e.g., slowed
perception or memory, bewilderment, inner calm, and many more). Above all, however,
overlong shots - just like shortened ones - play a central role for the allocation of metalogical
signals and thus for the constitution of inauthentic image-speech: Their conspicuous
referential redundancies operate with the expectation of pragmatic textual understanding,
which categorizes a sufficiently precisely perceived thing as 'understood' and therefore
experiences the insistent camera gaze as an inquest of this understanding. That is, the
overlength creates uncertainty in the viewer as to whether he has understood the image
correctly and thus moves him to search for further meanings of the image. The camera's
ability to view its objects from a varying distance (and perspective) is one of the most
important constituents of cinematic speech and, at the same time, one of the means of
presentation unique to film. Unlike the theater-goer, who perceives the stage action from a
constant distance and perspective, the cinema-goer, who also looks at the screen from a
constant distance and perspective, has the illusion of constantly changing the location of
perception, because images put their viewers in the position of the subject of perception, here
the camera. The distance between camera and object is one of the most important variations: it
regulates the relationship between image subject or recipient and objects as one of distance,
creates the greatest possible closeness or the greatest possible distance, narrows or widens the
field of vision, regulates the viewer's perception or gives it (limited) leeway.
5. The Berlin School using the example of Victoria
First attracted attention in the 1970s, the Berlin School developed as a style of German
cinema in the mid-1990s. Instead of telling unique stories, it focused more on depicting
individual situations. A special feature of this style is that characters are usually on the run
from something. This becomes clear in the film analysis in Chapter 6 about the film Victoria.
Details of individual characters are often vaguely described and the plot often has a negative
context. The return of the long take in the films of the Berlin School in fact deliberately
pushes against and beyond the dual template of the postwar long take: the aspirations of
Bazinian realism and the modernist demands for criticality and cognitive distantiation
("Berliner Schule | Filmlexikon | Filmproduktion Frankfurt," 2021). In lockstep with
(somewhat earlier) formalist interventions of East Asian filmmakers such as Hou Hsiao-
Hsien, Tsai Ming- Liang, and Jia Zhangke, as well as with Eastern European art house
directors such as Béla Tarr and Aleksandr Sokurov, the stretching of cinematic temporality in
the films of the Berlin School often aspires to reclaim the most vehement of all human
passions - the category of wonder. (Koepnick, 2017, p. 40)

The artistic spirit destroyed by the Nazi regime with the New Wave allowed it to rise from the
ashes again. German cinema, which made a name for itself with the comedy genre in the field
of cinema in the 90s and early 2000s, is trying to add an innovation through its stories, heroes
and fictional narration techniques. In this regard, the Berlin School can be shown as an
alternative initiative. The Berlin School, which wants to get rid of the mainstream German
cinema and takes the example of auteur directors such as Bresson, Rohmer or Hitchcock,
focuses on telling personal and social stories inspired by daily life and personal experiences in
films, rather than telling exciting or sensational stories. The directors of the Berlin School,
contented with pointing out the background information or motivations of the movie
characters, avoid the narratives about which detailed comments can be made. Characters often
run from something or someone, but they also have no vision of their new life or situation.
The films of the Berlin School take place in places that smell of anonymity and in squalid
neighborhoods of cities. The general depressive mood of the films reflects the existential
anxieties of the intellectual middle class to which the directors belong. The movement has a
structure far from the critical style of the New German Wave of the 1970s and has remained
limited as an initiative that does not offer any alternatives about the current social system.
Film critic Gerhard Midding criticizes that the dramatic element is pushed into the
background too much in the Berlin School films (Midding, 2007, p.24). Therefore, he thinks
that a film understanding based on reductionist stories will not be long-term. The directors
included in the Berlin School are Christian Petzold with his films Die innere Sicherheit
(2000), Wolfsburg (2003), Gespenster (2005) and Yella (2006); Stefan Krohmer in
Sommer'04 (2006); Thomas Arslan for The Dealer (1999) and Der schöne Tag (2001);
Christoph Hochhaeusler with Milchwald (2003) and Falscher Bekenner (2005); Benjamin
Heisenberg in Schläfer (2005); She is shown as Valeska Grisebach in Sehnsucht (2006),
Angela Schanelec in Mein langsames Leben (2001) and Ulrich Köhler in 2006's Montag
kommen die Fenster. The films included in the Berlin School won both national and
international awards, and although they were popularly referred to as "Nouvelle Vague
Allemande" (German New Wave) in France, they managed to attract the attention of a small
number of viewers in Germany.

6. Film Analysis Victoria

In a Berlin underground club, Victoria, a young Spanish woman, dances to exhaustion. As she
is about to leave the club, she meets a group of four young men who introduce themselves as
"Sonne," "Boxer," "Blinker," and "Fuß." Victoria does not speak German, so the group
communicates in English. The Spaniard takes her bicycle and wants to go home because it is
already four o'clock. On the sidewalk, she is stopped by the sun and invited to turn around
with them and their car. Quickly it turns out that they wanted to try to steal the car because a
man shouts that they should stop.

So, the group makes its way through Berlin's early morning streets and gets to know each
other. Several times the boys tell Victoria that they are "real Berliners" and no one knows the
city as they do. On the way, they pass a Späti that is like the sun mentioned his. The cashier is
asleep, and so the two help themselves and take beer for everyone. Nevertheless, shortly
afterward, it turns out that he is not the owner after all, and Victoria wants to return the beer.
On the street in front of the Späti, Blinker and Boxer start an argument with two pedestrians.
The alcohol level of the two almost leads to a brawl. Nevertheless, the whole thing can be
settled, and they continue to walk through the still dark Berlin. Sun wants to show Victoria
one of her favorite places. The boys climb with Victoria on a roof of a large prefabricated
building. While smoking a joint there, they all open up more and tell Victoria about their past.
It turns out, for example, that Boxer was in prison for a while. Then Victoria suddenly
remembers that she has to open the cafe at seven and falls into a slightly stressed state. She
wants to say goodbye, but Sonne offers to take her there. The group separates, and Victoria
and Sonne climb down the ladder of the roof. Arriving at the cafe, Victoria offers Sonne a
coffee. He goes with her and suddenly finds the piano on the wall. Without talent, he plays
wildly on it and says to her that he is a famous pianist. Then Victoria sits down next to him
and starts to play the Mephisto Waltz by Franz Liz. Victoria seems very vulnerable and opens
up to the impressed Sonne and tells him that she has spent her whole life trying to become a
concert pianist and has just recently been turned down. Engrossed in conversation, the two are
suddenly interrupted as Boxer, Blinker, and Foot are seen outside the cafe. Boxer wants
Sonne to come with him because he has to favor his old prison acquaintance. Meanwhile, the
foot is so drunk that he is no longer really capable of acting, and since they need four people
for the action, Sun persuades Victoria to join in. With a new car, they drive into the
underground parking lot of a multi-story parking lot. Here the gangster boss Andi waits with
his men for the four. It quickly turns out that the plan is to rob a bank, and Victoria is now the
driver. Shortly the robbery is planned, and before it starts, Andi tells the group to take Tilidin
as a stimulant. Afterward, they drive off, but in the middle of the way to the bank, Blinker
suddenly gets a seizure from the drugs. After a short break, Blinker recovers, and they drive
on. When they arrive at the bank, the boys get out of the car and rush into the bank while
Victoria waits in the car. Suddenly the engine goes out, and Victoria falls into a panic because
she doesn't know how to hotwire the car. Shortly after, the sun, Boxer, and Blinker come out
again, and Boxer also manages to get the car running again. They manage to escape and park
the car in a side street and go back to the club from the beginning and celebrate the successful
robbery. After a few moments, they are kicked out by the bouncer. You notice that your foot
is still in the car, so you go back to the vehicle. This is in the meantime, however, surrounded
by the police. Fleeing, the group is then noticed by police officers, and the pursuit begins. On
foot, they run through the alleys of the prefabricated buildings, where it then comes to an
exchange of fire in an inner courtyard. Boxer and Blinker are shot and expect the Sun and
Victoria to go on to save themselves. The two-run into one of the buildings and lock
themselves in an apartment of a young couple. In a panic, the two disguise themselves and
kidnap the baby as a means of camouflage. Despite being surrounded by the house and having
direct contact with the police, they manage to escape. They leave the child on the side of the
road in safety, just as they promised, and get into a cab, which takes them to the Westin Grand
hotel. Without identification documents, Victoria can book a room. In the room, she notices
that Sonne has been shot and is bleeding to death. Since no one knows her in Berlin, Sonne
asks her to take the money and leave since he has no strength. Nevertheless, she quickly calls
an ambulance, and Sonne dies a short time later in the hotel room's bed. With tears on her face
and the plastic bag full of money, she inconspicuously leaves the hotel and disappears into the
streets of Berlin.

6.1 Analysis of the plot

On a summer night in Berlin, Victoria meets four young, "real" Berlin men who, after a few
complications, persuade her to join them in a bank robbery. After a successful robbery and a
short, excessive celebration of success, the group is pursued by the police, and all the men,
except Victoria, suffering from gunshot wounds. The young Spanish woman escapes with the
loot and disappears into the streets of Berlin. At first glance, 12 pages of the script seem very
short for a feature film of 140 minutes. Still, this shortcoming was optimally compensated for
by the high-quality content and the improvisation of the actors. In the story, the narrator of the
plot is not identifiable as a person but appears as an eye or camera realistic and subjective.
Unaware of the history of the individual characters or the course of events, the narrator
contributes significantly to the film's reality. Part of the group, he follows without comment
the events with open eyes through the night and observes every detail. As the invisible sixth
member of the group [...], he is the subjective mediator of a collective experience.
Nevertheless, the role of the narrator does not deepen further and remains moving and close to
the action throughout the entire course of the action. The key character of the entire plot in
Victoria, from whom one can read the dramaturgy in her face through actions and dialogues
alone and with other actors over the course of the action. Nevertheless, the view of the
reflector character of Victoria changes over to the group of boys and thus deepens their
impressions of the events. The reality of the action and subjective closeness of the viewer into
the story is created by the long shot of the hand-held camera. As in documentaries that are
filmed from the hand, one gets the feeling in Victoria to participate in the event. The increase
of the dramaturgy builds up over the entire film. The camera in close-up or semi-close-up is at
eye level in every situation and strengthens the impression of group feeling. The story takes
place on a summer night in Berlin. The locations of the action are almost all within walking
distance or a short drive.
The story's time span can be determined relatively precisely by the actors' utterances such as
"It's only four o'clock!". The 140-minute planned sequence and will go from 4:00 in the
morning to about 6:30. Also, the action is told chronologically and runs in real-time. The
temporal environment is reinforced by the perception of the late-night sky fading into early
morning colors and supports the real impression that the narrative time of the schedule
sequence is congruent with real-time. There are no ellipses, such as the deliberate omission of
scene changes, and the story is built up without gaps. The first 40 minutes of the film serve
mainly to expose characters and their connections and locations. The actual plotline only
begins in the cafe, where one also clearly notices the closed narrative form when Victoria is
asked if she wants to stand in for the drunken foot and be the driver. Because she manages
this despite losing the boys and disappears with the money, the plot can be considered
complete.
6.2 The Time (Tempus) of Narrative
The first of Genette's three categories of the narrative is that of time. That the grammatical
category of tense is transferable to narrative needs no discussion. Genette treats under this
category the temporal "relations between the time of the story and the [...] time of the
narrative"i.e., what has already been discussed in connection with narrated time and narrative
time. Genette distinguishes three subcategories in the category of time:
1. Order: Here, the order of events is concerned with the deviations of the narrative from the
successive principle of the story.
2. Duration: This is about the difference between the duration of the narrated events in the
story and the duration that these events claim in the narrative.
3. Frequency: This is about the "relations between the repetitive capacities of the story and
those of the narrative." Or, in other words, it is about whether an event of the story is told
once or several times or how events that recur regularly are implemented in the narrative.
6.3. Victoria's motivation
As mentioned earlier, Victoria is the only one of the main characters in the film who is not
forced to participate in the bank robbery. This raises the question of their motivation, which
will be analyzed in more detail below. The reasons for this can be found in Victoria's past. In
the scene in the cafe, she tells Sonne about her youth as a piano student at a Madrid
Conservatory. About how she spent up to seven hours a day playing the piano for sixteen and
a half years and, as a result, had no life and no friends. So, she has dedicated her entire life to
one thing. Victoria is an idealist who follows everything she does with absolute devotion.
This explains why, after she has promised to help Sonne and the others, she no longer
deviates from her plan. Even when she realizes she's going to be part of a crime. From the
underground car park to the bank, Blinker has a panic attack, and Victoria stops the car. Boxer
now wants to carry out the robbery on his own, but Victoria stands by him and says that she
will come with him and drive him. At this moment, Victoria is the driving force that holds the
group together.
In the audio commentary on the original DVD for “Victoria,” director Sebastian Schipper
describes the figure of Victoria as a megalomaniac. He refers to the fact that the piano piece
that Victoria Sonne plays in the cafe is the “Mephisto Waltz, “Is about Franz Liszt. This piece
is generally considered unplayable. Yet Victoria chooses just this. This fact clearly shows that
Victoria has an excessive self-image, which is reflected in her behavior about the bank
robbery. A person who does not have the “megalomania” mentioned by Schipper would
probably have behaved completely differently in an extreme situation like this one or would
not have wanted to participate in one. The piano scene in the cafe contains a further indication
of a possible “dark side” of Victoria. When she finished the piece, and Sonne gave its name,
he said: "I like the devil." To which Victoria replies: "me too." This allusion is an anticipation
of the further plot of the film to the extent that it shows that Victoria is quite capable of more
than one would expect of her at the beginning. That she is ready to make the proverbial “pact
with the devil.” Victoria came to Berlin to leave her old life behind, break out of the structures
and the usual order from her time at the conservatory. Participating in the bank robbery allows
her to radically change her life and close off with her old self.
6.4 Filming
In April 2014, the filming of Sebastian Schipper's "Victoria" took place. The 133-minute-long
planned sequence was shot in the Berlin-Kreuzberg and Mitte area. It took only three takes to
get to the theatrical version (Redaktion, 2015). In addition to the main actors in the film, 150
extras can be seen throughout the plot. Three teams for the film sound and a total of six
assistant directors were available to Sebastian Schipper to capture the total of 22 motifs in the
film. To avoid mistakes during filming, the team was kept as small as possible. Due to the
many perspectives and movements, they also wanted to avoid any team members seen in the
picture.
Due to the constant movements of the actors during the action through the Kreuzberg district,
cameraman Struma Brandt Grovlen was often on the road without direction and team
(VICTORIA | INTERVIEW | Das One-Take Interview zum One-Take Film! n.d.). The idea
was to avoid distracting the team. Schipper was therefore not present at various locations in
his own film and thus passed on the responsibility to the cameraman. He compares his way of
directing with the work of a soccer coach during a game. "During the shooting, I could hardly
intervene, and during hectic scenes, I couldn't be there at all. For me, it was perhaps like being
a soccer coach. Once the game is on, it's on. But to be honest: This inability to intervene even
made me feel richly blessed. Because leading a team means determining everything for weeks
and sometimes months, from morning to night, and being asked everything. All at once,
letting go in big areas and relinquishing control, that also had something very liberating for
me." As Schipper describes, this way of working was liberating and also began in pre-
production. The script consisted of only twelve pages and received no dialogue, which had to
be improvised by the actors. So, the first and second takes were to work on the script, adjust
the dialogues, make changes to the characters, otts, and sequences of the story. "What was
special about the book was that it didn't have any dialogue in it. Normally, you work on a
script for ages - well, ages if it's going badly, and two years if it's going well. Then you shoot
like crazy and sit in the editing room afterward and think: Shit, this isn't working, how can we
save this? With "Victoria," we basically wrote the script, the structure, the dialogues together
on location, and meanwhile, we kept reworking and rearranging the scenes. So, the work on
set had to anticipate what would normally come after the shooting was finished." As the
actors worked with Schipper, new storylines developed out of the process of filming. An
important scene like the one on the roof of the skyscraper was planned on location and
contributed to the overall clarity of the film, as well as the fact that Boxer owes money to an
old acquaintance from prison and that they plan the bank robbery together, which was not
included in the script (VICTORIA | INTERVIEW | Das One-Take Interview zum One-Take
Film! n.d.).
6.5. Sound Design
The concise atomic compositions by the musician Nils Frahm have a major impact on
heightening the dramaturgy. These run through the entire film except for the music in the
techno club. Frahm works with few instruments, limiting himself to synthesizers, piano, cello,
violin, and piano. Victoria also takes up the piano in the coffee itself, where she reveals
herself to Sonne, who is fascinated by her talent. The composer Frahm played the music
specifically to the happy but also dramatic actions of the film. For example, you can see how
euphoric the music reflects on the group in the rooftop scene, and in the same way, it
heightened the bank robbery. When few words were used, the music strongly complemented
the overall feel of the action and underscored the protagonists' feelings. Using the moon
technique, the music expresses in a direct atmospheric way the current moods and emotions of
the main characters. Concerning the improvised overall structure of the film work, Frahm's
music was also improvised (Frahm, n.d.). After filming, Frahm and a small team of selected
guest musicians sat in front of a large screen and played the music directly (Nils Frahm, n.d.).
Thus, the emotions of the musicians at the first viewing of the film were compressed in the
music they played directly. Funk, Viola. The soundtrack of 'Victoria' is at least as good as the
film itself.
6.6. Lighting design
There is no lighting design in the true sense of the word with “Victoria.” The use of spotlights
to illuminate the locations cannot be seen. The only light sources that could be called
specially set for the film are the spotlights or stroboscopic lights in the club, as this, in
contrast to the other locations (apart from the bank), was set up especially for the film. Apart
from that, the film only uses “Available Light,” i.e., only the light given by the natural
surroundings. An elaborate illumination of individual locations would hardly have been
possible because of many locations and the constant change between them. Apart from that,
there would be a great risk that light structures or members of the film team would appear in
the picture with such an illumination. In contrast to conventional film production, in which
individual scenes are precisely illuminated, and the exact position or the exact movement of
the camera is known on the shelf, with "Victoria" this always reacts spontaneously to the
respective situation, so that an adjustment is made the lighting on the camera work could not
have been made.

This lack of illumination or the exclusive use of available light directly impacts the film's
image composition. For example, some short sections of the film take place in almost total
darkness. Examples include the beginning of the bike ride from Sonne and Victoria to the cafe
or the escape of the two through a stairwell after the shooting with the police towards the end
of the film. 4546 At this point, the film dispenses with the accurate illumination of its
locations and actors that cinema viewers are used to in favor of a higher narrative speed and
an unpredictable narrative style. The value of this is higher in "Victoria" than the perfectly
composed picture.

6.7. Analysis of the film tone

In contrast to the image material, there are numerous cuts and changes made by the post-
production on the film's soundtrack. Since director Sebastian Schipper gave direct instructions
to his actors during the shoot, these had to be cut out of the soundtrack afterward. In the audio
commentary on the film, Schipper describes a scene in which the editing was particularly
effective. After the banker robbery, Victoria drives the getaway car through the streets of
Berlin. Actors Laia Costa did not know the exact route to the next location, so Sebastian
Schipper, lying in the trunk, called the command to turn several times. His instructions can no
longer be heard in the final version of the film. Another example of the subsequent sound
processing can be found at the end of the film in the hotel. Here Victoria covers up the dying
sun. Meanwhile, Sebastian Schipper gives directional instructions to Laia Costa. After the
sun, played by Frederik Lau, has succumbed to his injuries, Laia Costa goes to the door of the
hotel room. At that moment, Sebastian Schipper assumed that she was still holding one of the
weapons in her hand, but that was not the case. So, he calls to her from the background that
she should drop the gun.

With her back to the camera, Laia Costa replies at this moment, in the middle of the ongoing
recording, that she is not carrying a weapon. This, too, was cut out of the soundtrack and
cannot be heard in the film. According to Laia Costa, during the shooting on the roof of the
house, residents' complaints arose during the take, which also had to be removed: “When we
were shooting on the roof, for example, complained a neighbor loudly: “It's the middle of the
night!” Of course, that was also recorded, but cut out again in post-production.” During the
shoot, all actors were equipped with clip-on microphones. However, the sound was also
recorded using a boom. For this purpose, three complete sound teams were available during
the entire take, who took turns or waited at the individual locations for the actors to arrive.
Originally, the use of boom poles was not to be used. Director Sebastian Schipper feared that
there was too great a risk that booms or team members could appear in the picture during the
shoot. According to his own statement, Schipper's concerns were ignored by his own team
and, despite his initial rejection, boom rods were used.

6.8 Analysis of the drama

If you consider that “Victoria” was shot in just one take, the question arises as to the resulting
challenges for the actors before and during the shoot. So, the circumstances required that all
actors had to stay in their role throughout. There were no breaks or interruptions in the
shooting during the approximately 130-minute playing time of the film. This arouses
associations with the work of theater actors since; unlike film actors, they do not only have to
remain in their role for the duration of individual, several-minute takes but over the entire
length of a play. The time requirements for the actors in "Victoria" can be compared with
those of theater actors, but not the general framework or the type of representation itself. The
theater is usually limited to a single, fixed space Stage that is usually not left by the actors. On
the other hand, in “Victoria,” the actors are almost constantly in motion and often change
locations while they have to remain in their roles non-stop. As far as the nature of the
performance is concerned, the theater actor has to fill the space available to him with his
presence. He has to use his gestures, facial expressions, and his voice more intensely to reach
all viewers in the room and to be able to represent the emotions of his character. This form of
representation is not given with film in general and with "Victoria" in particular. The reason
for this is the presence of the camera. It creates a closeness for the viewer of the film that is
denied to the theater audience. This requires a much more reduced representation from the
actors since the camera's proximity captures even the smallest changes in gestures and facial
expressions. This means that the actors are not only allowed to “play” their roles but have to
immerse themselves in them. That you have to feel all the emotions, your characters feel
yourself to generate credibility. “The quality of the film does not consist in the fact that it was
shot in one take, but what the consequences of the restriction to one take were: the actors
really burned for their roles, there was a constant feeling that they had just barely missed the
catastrophe be. " (Pilarczyk & SPIEGEL, 2015).

Sebastian Schipper made it clear to his actors that the audience can only feel something if
they themselves feel something at the moment. And that a pure representation is not enough,
but that the actors have to experience every moment with full intensity. This experience and
“immersion” in the role become clear in the behavior of Laia Costa at the end of the film.
When Victoria lays the hot sun in the hotel bed, she pulls up his t-shirt for a moment to look
at his wound. At that moment, Laia Costa forgets that the wound is not there yet, as Frederik
Lau first has to inflict it on himself through a bag of artificial blood laid out in bed. In this
situation, she is so deeply absorbed in caring for Victoria that she forgets the previously
agreed process. Another challenge was improvising all the dialogues. The screenplay for the
film consisted of a twelve-page manuscript with no given text (Redaktion, 2015). However,
the dialogues were not freely improvised during the actual shooting. Before filming began,
Sebastian Schipper rehearsed with his actors for a period of two months (Kinofenster.de,
2015). During these rehearsals, rough procedures were set in which the actors could move
relatively freely during the shoot. Sebastian Schipper compares this approach of the actors
with the interaction of a band: "The musicians know the key and the rhythm, and the
improvisation is not taking place for the first time." This combination of improvisation and
staying in the role over the entire period required a high level of concentration and creativity
from the actors and is another example of the unconventional approach of actors and directors
to the film.

6.9 Improvisation and deliberate mistakes

Since "Victoria" was shot mostly in open space and not on a locked set, there was a risk of
being influenced by external circumstances such as weather breakdowns or passers-by
walking through the frame. The basic attitude of everyone involved was that mistakes could
happen in any situation. This in mind allowed the entire team to interact a bit more freely and
enact natural reactions. Thus, even in the final film, several unintentional glitches caused by
external factors are apparent. For example, before shooting at Victoria's cafe, a passerby
walked through the frame. However, this person behaved quite inconspicuously and did not
look directly into the camera and thus be held extra.
However, it is precisely this approach that does not rule out imponderables during filming.
There was always the risk that both external and internal factors could cause the project to
fail. External factors here mean, for example, interference with the shooting by passers-by or
other people who are not part of the team. This is not unlikely because the film was shot
largely in public spaces, i.e., on streets and sets that are not cordoned off. 72 In the film, there
are several examples of precisely this type of disturbance caused by external factors. In
addition to the resident complaints mentioned by Laia Costa in the chapter "Analysis of the
film sound" during the filming on the house roof, there were other "intruders" on the set.
During the shooting in front of Victoria's Cafe, a passer-by ran right through the group
standing in front of it and thus through the picture. However, he behaved inconspicuously and
did not look into the camera and could have been taken for an extra. A stroke of luck for the
team. Any other behavior in this situation could have led to the shooting being aborted.
A passerby behaves much more conspicuously at the end of the film. When Sonne and
Victoria enter the hotel, a person in the background obviously recognizes the situation, goes
off-camera, and then runs back into the camera view. Also, Blinker's panic attack was
recognized by a couple, as they felt his reactivity was genuine and wanted to help. Sebastian
Schipper, who was not directly on-site and hid in the car trunk, had to stop the two and
explain that it is a film shoot.
Mistakes also happened on the part of the actors, for example, after the bank robbery, when
Victoria got into the car and wanted to drive off. Again, there were no closed roads, and the
shooting took place in public traffic. There had not been enough time to discuss the exact
route. Sebastian Schipper, who was in the trunk of the car, was supposed to sign when turning
off, which Victoria misunderstood in the hectic rush and so turned off into a parking lot where
part of the shooting team was. Fortunately, the cameraman Sturla Brandth Grovlen was able
to react quickly so that nothing could be seen. Minor mistakes by the actors, such as in the
food scene where "Sonne" was supposed to help himself to a preperierent nonalcoholic beer,
but then reached for a real beer where the logo was also recognizable.
Conclusion
In summary, and based on the findings of my research and analysis of the film Victoria, I
have found that even an experimental form of work contributes to the film's dramaturgy. Also,
in the film, the plan sequence is a precisely constructed narrative, a stylistic device. When
dealing with my thesis, it became apparent that the plan sequence is specifically used to
captivate the viewer and take him into a virtually real experience. As the example of Victoria
shows, the 135 minutes have a very intensive effect on the viewer, and you become part of the
action using a free camera. The long take offers the possibility to perceive details like no other
film style, and one orientates oneself in the film like almost in real life. In the course of the
analysis of Victoria, it became clear that the film without editing is much more than just a
stylistic device and offers a space for a fictional real experience. Especially about the future of
cinema, I could well imagine that the subject of plan sequences will be thought through
further and perfected more and more. I see elaborate plan sequences as a possibility using new
technologies; fictional events in combination with sensory effects such as smell and touch in
cinemas can play a major role in standing out from the 3D trend. The course of this analysis
has become clear in the course of the development. In the discussion of my thesis, it has
become clear that today's cinema is characterized by breathtaking effects, a lot of movement,
hectic images, and especially many cuts. Although the cut in the film has established itself as
a formal stylistic device and the recipient hardly notices it, some directors consciously
distance themselves from it—the long shots resulting from the film without editing offer the
viewer experience stories intensively and true to reality.
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See the original film on DVD “Victoria” - audio commentary with Sebastian Schipper -
timecode: 02: 09: 08min - 02: 09: 27- min http://www.kinofenster.de/film-des-monats/archiv-
film-des -months / kf1506 / kf1506-victoria-interview-laia-costa / (as of 03.11.2015)
See original film on DVD "Victoria" - audio commentary with Sebastian Schipper - timecode:
01: 38: 35min - 01: 38: 46-min

See original film on DVD “Victoria” - audio commentary with Sebastian Schipper - timecode:
01: 38: 35min - 01: 38: 46-min

See original film on DVD “Victoria” - audio commentary with Sebastian Schipper - timecode:
02:01:25 - 02:02:50