The Girl with the Needle

Though loosely based on the true story of one of Denmark’s most infamous killers, director Magnus von Horn’s audacious third feature is a far cry from conventional tales of evil-doers preying on the vulnerable. Neither its setting of post-WWI Copenhagen nor its stark black-and-white cinematography provide any comfortable sense of remove. Instead, The Girl with the Needle is discomfitingly resonant as a story about the choices — and dangers — so often faced by women at society’s fringes.

Vic Carmen Sonne stars as Karoline, a young seamstress trying to survive on her own since her husband was declared missing in action. Fortune smiles upon her when she develops a connection with Jørgen (Joachim Fjelstrup), the owner of the factory where she works. Yet a cascade of misfortunes soon reminds her of how little protection she actually enjoys. Her woes set her on the path toward Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a shop owner who offers a particular service to women in need. The dynamic they form will have major repercussions for them both.

For all its squalor and horror, there’s great vitality within the film, too. With von Horn demonstrating the same boldness that energized his second feature, Sweat — presented in the Festival’s Industry Selects programme in 2020 — the film blends hard-nosed naturalism and a more expressionistic mode pitched somewhere between fairy tale and gothic nightmare. While the nods to Fritz Lang, Carl Theodor Dreyer, and Tod Browning highlight his deft deployment of an earlier era’s cinematic vocabulary, Sonne and Dyrholm’s fierce performances bring this darkly hued parable into the now.

JASON ANDERSON

Content advisory: violence, mature themes, drug use, nudity