Meet Dagmar, who runs an underground adoption agency
Tale
Copenhagen, 1919: A young worker is unemployed and pregnant. A strong bond is formed, but her world is shattered when she uncovers the shocking truth behind her work. Denmark’s official submission to the 2025 97th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. It’s the final days of the Great War, and Caroline is barely surviving working in a factory.
When was the rampant drug use of the time so honestly portrayed?
She believes she’s a widow because her husband disappeared during the war (even though Denmark didn’t actually participate), but she doesn’t receive any widow’s benefits because he’s not listed as a dead person. There’s a lot going on in the film, and I don’t want to give away any spoilers, so I won’t go into much more detail about the plot, except to highlight something that’s not as big a part of the 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 surrounding Caroline’s story. When was the last time someone in a film tried to convince a potential tenant to take an apartment by saying they could have running water for two hours a day (from ten to noon, which isn’t a great selling point, since most people would be working during those hours)?
While Dagmar is the main character, the film is clearly about Caroline and her struggles
Even what Dagmar does was pretty common at the time, although I would venture to say that the trend was declining at that time and it wasn’t as common as it used to be. I might have liked the film better if the marketing had been different and Dagmar hadn’t been mentioned, as it set expectations. On the other hand, it’s hard to say how I would have felt seeing Dagmar Overby’s name on the door if I hadn’t known in advance that this real-life person was being used in the film. (It should be noted that the film is inspired by real-life events, not based on them, so they try to keep some distance from the real Dagmar.) I feel like some audiences will have a hard time sympathizing with Caroline, because sometimes it feels like she makes the right decision too late.
I like the look of the film
At the same time, there’s not much time or room for ethics when you’re simply trying to survive in a world where the odds are stacked against you. On the other hand, even though we know that the hope he’s given will be of no use in this world, we still understand why he lets himself be carried away by it. It’s black and white, and the entire city looks abandoned and barely standing. It reminds us of the lack of interest in, or even contempt for, the well-being of the working poor.
Has everything really changed that much?
The era depicted took place over a century ago, but the concept of female bodily autonomy is under constant attack again. Of course, all art is in a way a mirror of the time in which it was created, but it seems easier to see the similarities here.
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