Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The cruelty of the world finds a home in Copenhagen in The Girl with the Needle. Another film might look fondly at the Danish capital of a century ago, recreated here with neat cobblestones, sweet shops and a polite social order. But working in pin-sharp black and white, director Magnus von Horn brings icy clarity to the tale of an ordinary young woman, Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), whose misfortune is vast in pitiless times. Her husband is missing in the first world war; life as a factory seamstress an underpaid trial. Such is the beginning of the end in a Denmark as stark as the films of Lars von Trier or Carl Theodor Dreyer, with perhaps a twist of a nightmare Hans Christian Andersen.The film is actually true crime — or rather, it touches on a ghastly real chapter in Danish history. (The case is that of Dagmar Overbye, should you wish to investigate.) But grim fact is woven into Karoline’s fictional odyssey of betrayal and desperate measures. The descent quickens with the end of the war, as men return as seeming monsters. But mothers are more central still: overprotecting feckless sons, sheltering unwanted babies. What follows can be hard. You may reflect on the skill of von Horn and the cast in the moments you most want to stop watching. But the film rewards your fortitude. This is fine cinema about godforsaken lives.★★★★☆In UK cinemas from January 10
