14/44
Copenhagen 1919: A young worker finds herself unemployed and pregnant. She meets Dagmara, who runs an underground adoption agency. Their strong bond grows stronger, but her world falls apart when she stumbles upon the shocking truth behind her actions. Denmark’s official submission for Best International Feature Film. in 2025 for the 97th Academy Awards. It’s the final days of the Great War, and Caroline is barely surviving, working in a factory. She thinks she’s a widow because her husband disappeared during the war (even though Denmark was not involved), but she doesn’t receive a widow’s pension because she’s not listed as deceased. There’s a lot going on in the film. and I don’t want to get into spoilers, so I won’t go into the plot, except to say that the marketing emphasizes something that’s not as important a part of the film as you might expect. Although a lot of attention is paid to it in the second half of the film, for me the real value of the film is the sense of reality surrounding Caroline’s story. When was the last time someone in a movie tried to convince a potential tenant to rent an apartment by telling them they could have running water for two hours a day (from 10am to noon, which may be too few since most people work those hours)? When was the prevalence of drug use so honestly portrayed? Even what Dagmar does was fairly common back then, although I imagine that trend was waning by this point and it wasn’t like it used to be. I really enjoyed the movie, especially if the marketing had been different and Dagmar hadn’t been raised to raise expectations. Although Dagmar is the main character, the movie is clearly about Caroline and her struggles. On the other hand, it’s hard to say how I would have felt if I had seen Dagmar Overby’s name on the door if I hadn’t known ahead of time that this was a real person being used in the movie. (It should be noted that the movie is inspired by, not based on, true events, so they try to keep a certain distance from the real Dagmar.) , because at times it seems like she makes the right decision a little too late. At the same time, there’s not much time or opportunity for ethics when you’re just trying to survive in a world where the odds are stacked against you. On the other hand, even though we know that the hope she’s been given would be futile in this world, we still understand why she gives in to it. I like the look of the film. It’s in black and white, and the entire town looks abandoned and barely surviving. It reminds us of the lack of concern, even contempt, for the well-being of the working poor. Have things really changed that much? The time depicted was over a hundred years ago, but the concept of female bodily autonomy is again under constant attack. Of course, all art is in some way a mirror of the time in which it was made, but it seems easier to see the similarities. Here.