#TIFF26: “WOMAN UNKNOWN” REVIEW

By Amanda Gilmore

The winner of this year’s uBest Actress at the Venice International Film Festival is an unflinching thriller set in post-war Copenhagen.

The citizens of Copenhagen are eager to reclaim their city after 5 years of Nazi occupation. However, Dane’s with previous ties to the occupiers live in terror because their fellow citizens are seeking retribution. This form of mob justice is worse for women who have been accused of past involvement with Germans. They are brought into the street and viciously humiliated.

Woman Unknown follows Marie (Mathilde Arcel), a young maid who is working her way through social stations by marrying Christian (Carsten Bjørnlund), a wealthy widower who’s also her employer. However, this life she’s been building becomes jeopardized when she has a chance encounter with a man from her past. He threatens to tell everyone about her previous pregnancy by a German solider. This sends Marie on an increasingly desperate quest to keep her past unknown, at any cost.

Filmmaker May el-Toukhy delivers a raw and heartbreaking film loaded with tension. Nearly all scenes are shot with a quiet intensity, except those of women being degraded. Resulting in these scenes being more traumatizing.

el-Toukhy has nothing but empathy for her protagonist, even in her darkest actions. We’re shown the heinous acts done to these women. Their hair is cut off, and a swatzika is painted on their naked bodies for all to see. These harrowing scenes show us what we need to understand why Marie will go to any length to keep her secret. Arcel is tremendous as Marie whose subtle performance is one of the finest of the year.

Woman Unknown is a harrowing piece of filmmaking about the darkest parts of humanity in the remnants of war.

Woman Unknown screens at TIFF ’26:

Tues. Sept 15 @ 2:30 PM at TIFF Lightbox

Thur. Sept 17 @ 8:30 PM at TIFF Lightbox

Sun. Sept 20 @ 4:35 PM at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto