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18/16
category at the 97th Academy Awards in 2025
Plot
Copenhagen 1919: A young worker finds herself unemployed and pregnant. She meets Dagmar, who runs an underground adoption agency. Their strong relationship grows stronger, but her world falls apart when she stumbles upon the shocking truth behind her work. Denmark’s official submission for Best International Feature Film.
The final days of the Great War are approaching, and Caroline is barely scraping by working in a factory
She believes she is a widow because her husband disappeared during the war (although Denmark was certainly not involved), but she is not receiving widow’s benefits because he is not listed as a dead person. There is a lot going on throughout the film, and I don’t want to give away any spoilers, so I won’t go into the plot, except to highlight that the marketing is highlighting what is not as big a film as one might expect. While it gets a lot of attention in the second half of the film, for me the real value of the film is the sense of reality that surrounds Caroline’s story. When was the last time someone in a film tried to convince a potential tenant to take an apartment by telling them they could get running water for two whole hours a day (from ten to noon, which might not be a big deal since most people would be working during those hours)?
When was the rampant drug use depicted so honestly?
Even what Dagmar does was pretty common back then, although I would have to hazard a guess that the trend is now on the decline and it doesn’t happen as often as it used to. In fact, I might have liked the film better if the marketing had been different and Dagmar hadn’t been brought up because it created expectations. While Dagmar is the main character, the film is clearly about Caroline and her struggles. And again, it’s hard to say how I would have felt seeing Dagmar Overby’s name on my neck if I hadn’t known beforehand that this real person was being used in the film.
I love the look of the film
(It should be noted that the film is inspired by real-life events, not based on them, so some distance is taken from the real Dagmar.) I have a feeling that some audiences will have a hard time sympathizing with Caroline, because at times it feels like she makes the right decision too late. At the same time, there’s not much time or room 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 given in this world would be nil, we still understand why she gives in. It’s black and white, and the entire city looks abandoned and barely holding on.
Has things really changed that much?
It reminds us of the lack of interest, or even contempt, for the welfare of the working poor. The time depicted took place over a century ago, but the concept of a woman’s bodily autonomy is once again under constant attack. Of course, all art is somehow a mirror of the time in which it was created, but it seems easier to see the similarities here