In ways both literal and figurative, the face plays a central role in The Girl with the Needle, Magnus von Horn’s unsparing black-and-white drama about a woman whose life spirals from bad to worse after an unexpected pregnancy. What does a face show and hide? Is there even such a thing as a trustworthy face? The film opens with a tone-setting montage of disfigured faces that portends the societal decay of post-World War I Copenhagen—a rot that becomes apparent in the story as it increasingly infects a young woman facing motherhood.

The film proper begins on Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), who believes that her husband died in the war, being evicted from her flat by her landlord (Per Thiim Thim) because of overdue rent. Things would seem to take a turn for the better for the woman when she becomes pregnant by Jørgen (Joachim Fjelstrup), the well-to-do owner...