Magnus von Horn by no means needed to make a biopic of a serial killer: The Poland-based filmmaker finds that morally unusual. However when he was approached to direct a movie about Dagmar Overbye, a Danish girl who killed no less than 9 infants within the 1910s, he reconsidered, centering “The Girl With the Needle” on a determined mom searching for adoption providers somewhat than on the killer herself.
“I think most people in Denmark know about Dagmar and the true crime that inspired us to write about this. But no one outside Denmark,” Von Horn says. “I mean, I’m Swedish by origin, but I never heard of it. But I had wanted to make a horror film, and I had mentioned that to the producer, and they felt that this might be material potent for that kind of film.”
Von Horn says he’s typically creatively energized by tasks that scare him, and this film actually scared him. He questioned: “How is that possible at all to kill an infant? I have two kids of my own. My second one was just born around that time, so I was carrying a newborn a lot in my arms.”
Denmark’s shortlisted submission for the worldwide function Oscar, “The Girl With the Needle” begins with Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), a younger girl struggling to get by within the waning days of World Warfare I. Together with her husband lacking after being despatched to the entrance traces, she begins a clandestine affair with the proprietor of her manufacturing facility, Jørgen (Joachim Fjelstrup). When she turns into pregnant, he agrees to marry her. It’s a real rags-to-riches story — till Jørgen’s stern mom threatens to chop him off financially. He relents, and Karoline’s dream is shattered. Alone and jobless, Karoline makes an attempt to induce an abortion in a public ladies’s bathhouse with the titular needle. That’s the place she meets Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), who stops her, basically altering not solely Karoline’s life however that of her then-unborn daughter.
“So many things are not historically correct in our film, but that’s not important in my mind because the emotional truth is there,” director Magnus von Horn says of his movie “The Girl With the Needle.”
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Instances)
“We tried many other places to have them meet, but nothing was as good as that scene, because I think, for one, it’s a natural place for women to meet who live in poverty and need to go wash,” Von Horn says. “But it’s also the idea that she goes there to terminate a life. She’s saved by a woman who re-gives her life, who then later takes the life of the baby she saved in that moment. So, it’s like a very strange twist when you look at it from some distance. It’s almost kind of like fate.”
As in actual life, the fictional Dagmar runs a sweet store the place ladies drop off their undesirable infants and obtain assurances {that a} good residence might be discovered for them. And, regardless of no proof to again this up, Karoline believes that’s precisely what her new good friend is doing. In her eyes, Dagmar is offering a service for girls who’ve nowhere else to show.
“So many things are not historically correct in our film, but that’s not important in my mind because the emotional truth is there,” Von Horn says. “And that’s why women went to her. So, on an emotional level, I think it’s very true.”
The Dagmar case did assist change legal guidelines in Denmark to make sure this situation couldn’t occur once more. A private identification quantity was launched so individuals couldn’t simply disappear and not using a hint after they had been born. Von Horn notes that, earlier than this, “Babies could just be flushed down somewhere, and no one would miss this baby. No one would even have proof that it ever existed except someone saying that it did exist.”
That is darkish material and, framed in a sure approach, could possibly be fairly bleak. Impressed by the Lumière brothers and movies equivalent to “The Elephant Man,” “Oliver Twist,” “The Exorcist” and even “The Lighthouse,” Von Horn gave the narrative a grounded however close-to-fairy-tale luster, taking pictures it in black-and-white. In his eyes, it was necessary to present viewers far from actuality, so the viewers isn’t overwhelmed by the proceedings. In some components of America, as an example, restrictive abortion legal guidelines have been enacted, and lower-income ladies have been compelled to, like Karoline, take issues into their very own palms.
“I live in Poland, where there are very similar harsh abortion laws, which have removed the freedom of choice from women,” Von Horn says. “I could see a version where this story could be adapted to a contemporary story set today in the countryside, in Poland, for example, a film made in color, extreme documentary reality-style. Man, the film would be so f— horrible. No one would be able to watch it either. So, this element of creation and this black-and-white, and this long, long time ago feeling that you enter the film with, I think, helps with that.”