The Girl With the Needle

True crime as a post-WWI Scandi-noir fairytale – in the gruesome original sense of the word – this Danish masterwork of tension and terror stars Trine Dyrholm and Vic Carmen Sonne.

With her husband missing and presumed dead during the war, young seamstress Karoline (Sonne, Godland, MIFF 2022) is unable to pay the rent and subsequently evicted from their Copenhagen home. Destitute and soon pregnant to another man, who cannot marry her, she falls under the spell of charismatic candy-store owner Dagmar Overbye (Dyrholm, Queen of Hearts, MIFF 2019; The Commune, MIFF 2016), who promises Karoline a home, a job and a solution to her problems. But Karoline’s problems are only just beginning …

An ingenious fictionalised retelling of one of Denmark’s most infamous serial-killer cases, The Girl With the Needle is both deeply unsettling and distressingly relevant, as it explores the lengths women go to in order to survive a patriarchal society that sees them as disposable. Co-written and directed by Magnus von Horn (Echo, MIFF 2010), it’s both visually breathtaking – thanks to Michał Dymek’s sumptuous black-and-white cinematography, shot in compact 3:2 ratio – and emotionally nerve-shredding, while Frederikke Hoffmeier’s score ensures the anxiety never lets up. And yet this compelling spin on morality tales is never judgemental of its characters or their choices.

“A macabre and hypnotic horror … There’s no doubting the shiver of pure fear that runs through this movie from beginning to end.” – The Guardian