Princess is the most controversial Danish film since Lars von Trier's The Idiots - deemed religiously offensive by censors in Singapore because it contains an image of a nun being buggered by the cross. Get past the headline-grabbing details, however, and you discover something far more intimate and disturbing.

A hypnotic thriller that combines stark Japanese-style animation and hand-held video footage, Princess is ostensibly about the evils of the porn industry but works just as well as a portrait of a toxically dysfunctional, explosively loving family.

An ex-priest, August, takes charge of Mia, the five-year-old kid of his dead porn-star sister. Discovering the abuse to which Mia has already been subjected, he declares war on the industry. He is particularly keen to find Charlie, the porn baron who "discovered" his sister with the help of his camera. He wants to kill Charlie - but what Mia is after is less clear. Her uncle is affectionate but volatile. Is it possible that she, like her mother, feels Charlie is a safer bet?

Imagine a crazed hybrid of Spirited Away, Breaking the Waves and Ms.45 and you'll still be surprised by newcomer Anders Morgenthaler's smart, sensuous offering. Via the animation, he's managed to avoid exploiting a child actor; by shooting actress Stine Fischer Christenesen "in the flesh", he makes us doubly aware of her character's vulnerable state. He, unlike August, gets away with murder. His film flirts with prurience, sentimentality and machismo, but somehow stays pure.