Magnus von Horn by no means wished to make a biopic a couple of serial killer: the Polish director finds it morally unusual. But when he was requested to direct a movie about Dagmar Overbye, a Danish lady who killed no less than 9 kids within the 1910s, he reconsidered, centering “The Girl with the Needle” on a determined mom in search of adoption providers reasonably than concerning the killer himself. .
“I believe most individuals in Denmark know Dagmar and the true crime that impressed us to jot down about it. But nobody outdoors Denmark,” says Von Horn. “I imply, I’m Swedish by origin, however I’ve by no means heard of it. But I wished to make a horror movie, and I had talked to the producer about it, they usually thought it might be highly effective materials for that sort of movie.
Von Horn says he typically attracts artistic power from tasks that scare him, and this movie actually scared him. He questioned: “How is it doable to kill a toddler? I’ve two kids of my very own. My second was born proper round that point, so I typically carried a new child in my arms.
Denmark’s worldwide Oscar entry, “The Girl with the Needle,” begins with Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), a younger lady struggling to outlive within the ultimate days of the First World War. on the entrance strains, she begins a clandestine relationship together with her manufacturing unit proprietor, Jørgen (Joachim Fjelstrup). When she turns into pregnant, he agrees to marry her. It’s a real rags to riches story, till Jørgen’s strict mom threatens to chop him off financially. He provides in and Karoline’s dream is shattered. Alone and jobless, Karoline makes an attempt to induce an abortion at a public ladies’s bathhouse with the titular needle. It is there that she meets Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), who stops her, radically altering not solely Karoline’s life but additionally that of her then-unborn daughter.
“A number of issues aren’t traditionally appropriate in our movie, however for me it would not matter as a result of the emotional reality is there,” says director Magnus von Horn of his movie “The Girl with the Needle.”
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
“We tried many different locations for them to fulfill, however nothing was pretty much as good as that scene, as a result of I believe, for instance, it is a pure place to fulfill ladies who dwell in poverty and must go to scrub,” Von Horn says. “But there’s additionally the concept that she goes there to finish a life. She is saved by a lady who provides her life once more, and who then takes the lifetime of the kid she had saved on the time. So, it is like a really unusual twist while you take a look at it from a distance. It’s virtually a bit like destiny.”
As in actual life, the fictional Dagmar runs a candy store the place ladies depart their undesirable kids and are assured that good houses will probably be discovered for them. And, regardless of there being no proof to help this, Karoline believes that is precisely what her new buddy is doing. In her eyes, Dagmar gives a service to ladies who’ve nowhere else to show.
“A number of issues aren’t traditionally appropriate in our movie, however to me it would not matter as a result of the emotional reality is there,” Von Horn says. “And that is why ladies went to her. So on an emotional degree, I believe that is very true.
The Dagmar case helped change the legal guidelines in Denmark to make sure this situation couldn’t occur once more. A private identification quantity was launched so that individuals couldn’t merely disappear and not using a hint after start. Von Horn notes that, earlier than this, “kids may merely be thrown someplace, and nobody would miss this youngster. No one would even have proof that he ever existed, besides for somebody to say that he existed.
This is a darkish matter and, framed in a sure manner, might be fairly bleak. Inspired by the Lumière brothers and movies resembling “The Elephant Man”, “Oliver Twist”, “The Exorcist” and even “The Lighthouse”, Von Horn gave the narrative a concrete however fairy-tale splendor, taking pictures it in black and white black. In his eyes, it was vital to present viewers a long way from actuality, in order that the viewers was not overwhelmed by the proceedings. In some elements of America, for instance, restrictive abortion legal guidelines have been enacted, and low-income ladies have been compelled, like Karoline, to take issues into their very own palms.
“I dwell in Poland, the place there are very harsh abortion legal guidelines, which have taken away ladies’s freedom of alternative,” says Von Horn. “I may see a model the place this story might be tailored into a recent story set right this moment within the countryside, in Poland, for instance, a movie made in color, in an excessive documentary type. Man, the film could be so rattling terrible. No one would even be capable to take a look at it. So, this factor of creation and this black and white, and this sense of a protracted, very long time in the past that you just go into the movie with, I believe, helps with that.
