The Girl with the Needle, 2024.
Directed by Magnus von Horn
Starring Vic Carmen Sonne, Trine Dyrholm, Besir Zeciri, Ari Alexander, Per Thiim Thim, Joachim Fjelstrup, Ava Knox Martin
SYNOPSIS:
Copenhagen 1919: A young worker finds herself unemployed and pregnant. She meets Dagmar, who runs an underground adoption agency. A strong connection grows but her world shatters when she stumbles on the shocking truth behind her work.
A fairytale retelling of one of Denmark’s most shocking crime cases, The Girl with the Needle blends dreamlike expressionism with an earthly realism that conveys emotional intensity at its most raw.
The film traces the terrible experiences of Karoline (a fantastic Vic Carmen Sonne), an unemployed, single, pregnant woman in post-World War One Denmark. Her husband went missing during the war and she has had no word. With her emotional and mental fragility already stretched to the point of breaking, she finds herself without a job. An unhappy tryst with a manipulative and emotionally immature man leaves her pregnant with no support and little hope of improving her situation.
Into this bleak environment steps a beacon of hope in the shape of Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a charming woman who organises an underground adoption agency that helps mothers in trouble find foster homes for children who are either unwanted or unable to be taken care of.
Karoline and Dagmar form a strong bond, and the young mother takes on the role as a wet-nurse at the agency. However, all is not what it seems. Beneath her charismatic veneer, Dagmar holds a horrifying secret. When Karoline stumbles upon this secret, her entire world, and that of Copenhagen society as a whole, is completely turned upside down.
Things are complicated even further when a disfigured man claiming to be Karoline’s lost husband shows up on the streets looking for his wife.
This element delves deep into the stylistic inspiration for the look of this gripping and grim tale. The soldier has had half of his face destroyed and has been given a mask to wear that conjures up ideas of opera phantoms and classical villains. As it is, the man is kind and considerate, in stark contrast to the handsome rich young character whom Karoline had a brief dalliance with. The wounded soldier is forced to join a travelling circus as a living exhibit, and Karoline out of sheer desperation takes a needle to herself in a public bathhouse in attempted termination.
It is here that she meets Dagmar and from there, the story becomes even more horrible. Based on a true story and embellished with nightmarish but wholly believable touches, The Girl With the Needle is an immersive and uncomfortable viewing experience. Scenes are artistically framed, and the whole production is touched with morbid curiosity and fear-fueled adrenaline. Both leads are excellent in their respective roles with the fictionalised character of Karoline given personality and furious life by Carmen Sonne.
The backstory of the true character of Dagmar is necessarily kept out of the script, meaning that Dyrholm must subtly bring out the ambiguities and strangeness of her spirit in subtle and skilled ways. She succeeds brilliantly, and thanks to it, the film takes on a haunting and monstrous quality that lingers on long after the credits roll.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk
