‘The Girl with the Needle’ Review: A Pitch-Black Tale of Working Class Anguish Crafted With Formalist Superiority
Courtesy of TIFF
In Europe, the final decades of the Late Modern Age saw the culmination of the period’s gradual transition to capitalism, solidifying constructs of social stratification that divided civilization into two classes: the capitalists, who owned and controlled means of production, and the working class, whose only currency was the labor they could exchange for wages. Over time, the growing disparity between these two classes transformed into the root of social and economic inequality that would go on to shape the nationalism that would flare across the continent and lead it into unimaginable atrocities. Through his latest film, The Girl with the Needle, Danish filmmaker Magnus von Horn explores the social horrors present in Copenhagen circa 1918 that allowed vulnerable members of the lower class to be entirely disregarded by their surrounding worlds. Relentlessly grim in its depictions of the suffering of the marginalized, The Girl with the Needle takes on its solemn subject matter with exquisite crafting, even tying one of Denmark’s most infamous female criminals into its bleak but compelling narrative.
The girl with the said needle is Karolina (Victoria Carmen Sonne, Godland), a young seamstress struggling to survive alone in Copenhagen after her husband seemingly dies on the battlefields of World War I, where he went off to volunteer some years before. Kicked out of her apartment and relocated to a squalid attic inhabited by pigeons that come in through the shattered windows, Karolina begins to accept the idea of life on her own until she catches the eye of the Nepo baby proprietor of the factory where she works. Bossman Jørgen (Joachim Fjelstrup) seems sympathetic to Karolina’s situation, and the two begin a secret liaison, culminating with Karolina falling pregnant.
Just as Karolina believes her life is turning around, her fairytale romance is shattered when she is introduced to Jørgen’s baroness mother, who absolutely refuses for her weak-minded son to continue their class-defying courtship. Forced to pick up the pieces once more, Karolina is met on the street one day by a man whose face is half-masked: her husband, finally returning from the war. Peter (Besir Zeciri in a role that will break your heart) has been entirely altered by the frontlines: face disfigured, addicted to heroin, and plagued by the nightmares of war. As her pregnancy develops, Karolina is faced with the realization that she does not want her child, too painful a reminder of the despair she has faced. In a public bathhouse, a moment of radical bodily autonomy for Karolina is interrupted by a middle-aged woman, Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), swearing she can aid Karolina in rehoming her baby. Once born, Karolina takes her child to Dagmar, who claims to operate an under-the-table adoption agency out of her candy shop. Dagmar accepts the baby, but Karolina is still drawn to her maternal energy, moving in with Dagmar and earning her keep as a wet nurse for the babies that make their way through this covert operation. As Karolina is pulled further into Dagmar’s life, the reality behind her business is revealed, terrifying Karolina far more than any of the treachery life has already served her.
Courtesy of TIFF
Through its ultra-expressionist sensibilities, The Girl with the Needle explores the darkest features of the interwar period, a time of intense and consequential transition in Europe. It did not take long after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles for swathes of Europe’s population to question the motivations behind World War I. Unable to reconcile with justifying their efforts, many of the everyday folks who were part of the war saw their lives crumble, with no hope of resembling what they once had. The Girl with the Needle most successfully confronts this idea through the character of Peter, Karolina’s husband. Upon finally returning from the war after his assumed death, Peter is not welcomed backed Copenhagen as a hero, instead transformed into a monster in the eyes of his community. Incapable of finding a job among a highly desperate and competitive working-class population, Peter is compelled to join an old-fashioned circus, where he is featured as a freak show act. This perversity illustrates the disenfranchisement of an entire generation of men, forever changed by the battlefield and reintroduced to a society where they are virtually strangers. While Peter’s portrayal through the film’s narrative ascends as it moves forward, Jørgen’s character serves as the diametric opposite. Initially perceived as one of the few upper-class sympathizers of the miseries faced by the lower ranks of society, his proclivities for capitalism ultimately reign supreme, revealing the prevailing greediness that defined the historical period’s bourgeoisie. These ideological-turned-moral crises would evolve into the basis for the rise of nationalism that would come just a few years after the time in which The Girl with the Needle takes place.
Enough about the male characters in the film because The Girl with the Needle ultimately places most of its priority on how the interwar period impacted the lives of proletariat women. As the film commences before the end of the Great War is declared, the audience first enters a world in which men have disappeared, leaving women behind to uphold society along with maintaining their already demanding social expectations. We are dropped into the austere reality of Karolina’s existence, watching her suffer repeated blows that dramatically shock her livelihood. Sonne captures Karolina’s misery with a quiet dynamism, a nearly speechless performance at the movie’s start that evolves into an anguished perspective of hopelessness by its climax. As with the foremost male characters in the film, von Horn’s screenplay (co-written with Line Langebek Knudsen) forms contrasting components between Karolina and Dagmar’s characters. Dagmar’s assertive personality has protected her from the world and elevated her status from the muck and mire of the city’s working class. At her lowest, Karolina clings to the security and stability that Dagmar can provide, regardless of her criminal business dealings. Karolina’s conflicted collusion with Dagmar is ultimately overridden by the necessities of survival, culminating in a miserable image of an era where morality must be cast aside to endure.
Furthermore, the female figures in The Girl with the Needle and their tribulations astutely communicate with Denmark's history and the contemporary age. Without giving too much of her infamous account away, Dagmar's character is based on an actual figure, Dagmar Overby, whose criminal trial today remains one of the most notorious cases in Denmark. Von Horn's film does not feel tethered to real-life details, instead using Dagmar's crimes as a jumping-off point to delve into the nuanced perspectives of women during the era. Detouring from other period films or even depictions of women from the past–– often only relegated to be wives or mothers–– The Girl with the Needle explores the mindsets of those who did not want to have children and the concerns that have led them to such conclusions. This idea holds a particular currency in today's world, especially in the United States, leading up to the presidential election, when external forces are still concerned with women's autonomy over their bodies and decisions.
The Girl with the Needle flaunts some of the most memorable audiovisual craft in recent memory, working almost equally with the movie's narrative to convey its haunting atmosphere. The film's representations of the backstreets of Copenhagen are reminiscent of M. C. Escher's Relativity but injected with a hellish filth and gloom that concretizes the suffering of Karolina and the rest of the workers who inhabit the streets. Shot in a 4:3 ratio by Michał Dymek (EO, A Real Pain, Sweat), one of Europe's most talented cinematographers on the rise, the movie's high contrast black and white imagery is simultaneously exquisite and terrifying. It is clear that Dymek and the director looked to German Expressionist filmmakers like Fritz Lang and F. W. Murnau, composing dramatic imagery that works hand-in-hand with the film's gloomy subject. Jagna Dobesz's detailed production design for the film further enhances its ambiance, designing lived-in spaces ranging from grimy to grandeur that serve its characters and the intensity of their performances. Experimental musician Frederikke Hoffmeier contributes a score that is impossible to forget, maintaining a level of tension throughout that deliberately ratchets up the film's story as it climaxes.
The Girl with the Needle is uncompromising in its depictions of the woes of humanity–– particularly those of women–– during the interwar period in Europe. Von Horn's intricate recreation of the era is exceptionally compelling, as are the performances and material at the heart of his latest work. The darkness of the director's exploration through this movie will undoubtedly limit its potential in many commercial markets. Still, arthouse fans should absolutely make it a priority to experience Von Horn's unflinching statement as it makes its way into theaters in the coming months.
4/5
‘The Girl with the Needle’ world premiered in competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival before screening in the Special Presentations section at the Toronto International Film Festival. MUBI will distribute the film in the United States. Watch a clip from the film below, courtesy of Match Factory.