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“This World Is Hell for Women”: Magnus von Horn on The Girl with the Needle
Vic Carmen Sonne in The Girl with the Needle Caroline (Vic Carmen Sonne), a young factory worker living in abject poverty, serves as our window into the perilous post-war landscape of Copenhagen circa 1919 in The Girl with the Needle. Her dire situation is compounded by her social position as a working class woman, particularly since her husband, Peter (Besir Zeciri), has been out of the picture since he signed up to fight in the Great War (despite the country’s broader policy of neutrality). After she becomes pregnant by her wealthy boss, Jorgen (Joachim Fjelstrup), Caroline anticipates a new life of abundance and relative privilege. Of course, this inter-caste engagement is abruptly put to an end, and Caroline must forge her own way, though she can’t imagine how she’ll support herself and a child on her meager income.
Desperate to find a way out of single motherhood, her path crosses with Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a local woman who runs a clandestine adoption service out of her home. The two become close, and Caroline credits Dagmar with restoring security to her once-precarious life. Yet the gut-wrenching reality behind Caroline’s supposed happy ending quickly devolves into a full-blown nightmare, one that threatens to implicate the young woman in heinous crimes. The only thing that seems to ease the pain of this knowledge is a heavy dependence on ether, which begets a sense of surrealism bordering on the psychotic.
The third feature from the Sweden-born, Poland-based director Magnus von Horn (Sweat, The Here After) is a departure in every sense for the filmmaker: his first period-specific film, first foray into rich black and white cinematography and first effort as a co-writer, sharing screenplay credit with Danish screenwriter Line Langebek. Yet for all this experimentation, von Horn’s clear societal critique hones in on the depressing reality of reproductive oppression and the misogynistic mores reinforcing patriarchal dominance. Echoes of the past reverberate in our present climate, suggesting that the feminine barbarism on display in the film is merely a product of an eternally unjust, inhospitable world for women.
The Girl with the Needle opens on December 6 via MUBI. Below, von Horn elaborates on the film’s Poland-set production, the inspired avant garde electronic score and his hope to one day helm a romantic comedy. (The following conversation contains major spoilers, and this film’s winding narrative is best experienced as blind as possible).
Filmmaker: At the end of the film, it’s revealed that The Girl with the Needle is based on real events. How did you and co-writer, Line Langebek, shape the real-life elements of the narrative alongside the grimly surreal?
von Horn: In the beginning, it was about finding a way to tell this story that audiences would be able to relate to. Our conclusion was that we needed to not make a biopic about a serial killer, but find a main character we can relate to and engage with who eventually meets Dagmar. In our research of Copenhagen at the time and Dagmar Overby, it became obvious that this is not just about the evil in one woman. It says so much about society and the times they lived in. So, for us, the most interesting way was to create Caroline as a main character and to have her be one of the mothers who eventually goes to Dagmar and gives up her child. In that way, [she can] get closer to Dagmar and build a relationship. Once we did that, it became so important for us to create a credible story before we enter Dagmar’s apartment, because we don’t want to make [that connection] obvious. It takes an hour before we end up in her apartment and that part of the story is also equally important, so we have to create a credible life of this poor woman who struggles to get something more than she has been destined for. That story also became really interesting and set up the structure of the film, in a way—how to not fall into a classical horror genre, where we expect where we’re going. It started out with this true crime and we tried on purpose to get away from it. It’s strong as it is, so we don’t need to underline it.
Filmmaker: This is your third feature, but your first time working with a co-writer. Can you speak about that collaboration and seeking out or being paired with them for this project?
von Horn: Lina had the idea for this film in the very beginning. She approached Malene Blenkov, the Danish producer whom I had worked with a bit. I told her that I wanted to make a horror [film] in my own way at some point. Then she felt like, “Okay, we should pair up and develop this story.” It’s [been] a long journey. We wrote the script for four years. The first two, Lina was writing, then the next two years I was writing, because that’s also when I really needed to shape it around my process as a director and get it very much into my personal vision of the film. But I have never written with someone before, like you said, so in one way it’s very inspiring because I can keep some distance—you know, I don’t have to sit and be so close to the writing [process], which opens a different kind of creativity. On the other hand, there is a part of me that desperately loves writing. But I would never have met this project, which really became very important to me, had Lina not brought it up.
Filmmaker: The film takes place in Copenhagen, yet you shot primarily in Poland. How did you and your crew work to replicate the energy and feeling of post-WWI Denmark on set? It’s also interesting because both countries have a very different relationship to the “Great War.”
von Horn: I live in Poland. I’m Swedish. I don’t have any connection to Denmark except that it’s close to Sweden. I like to work in countries and languages that are not my own, but it’s very important for me to work with the creative team that I have based in Poland. I want to bring Poland on as a part of the production and financing so that I can access all of my people. I know Poland and the locations here much better, and I thought that they would be great to use because we have a lot more old and run-down parts of cities than Denmark does, even if they look different. We didn’t care so much about the historical correctness of this film, like [making sure we had] the right kind of doorknobs and window frames. That’s not what inspires us in filmmaking and it’s not important for us. What’s important is to create an image, a place and a story from 100 years ago that feels credible for an international audience where most people don’t know what Copenhagen looked like. You try to tap into a feeling or atmosphere that is credible, that feels like the old world. That was our approach: “Let’s be inspired by the images of that world that existed at the time and let that feed our imagination.” Images and films made are manipulated ways of looking at the world, not a representation or an exact copy. In a way, there’s a very meta perspective of accessing those images, but I believe that’s the way we travel in time. If we would go to the times of the Renaissance, we wouldn’t shoot in black and white, we would shoot in color and be inspired by the paintings of that time, which are also not reproductions of [life during] that time. For us, what was important was that image of poverty where you can smell the dirt and almost touch it. We have a lot of these locations in Poland and know where to find them, so that was a much better way for us to work.
Filmmaker: Speaking of the black-and-white cinematography, you’ve spoken about certain references you and DP Michał Dymick looked to, but I’m also curious about granular conversations you both might’ve had about framing, technique and style.
von Horn: It’s a film that we’ve prepared for a very long time. We partly have the ability to do that because the financing system in Europe is so slow and it takes a long time to get a film like this greenlit, so we had a lot of time and know each other well. Me and Michał are good friends. Me and Jagna Dobesz, the [production designer], are good friends. Me and the costume designer, Malgorzata Fudala, are friends. So, we are able to spend time together not only when we have a contract signed, but we hang out and go traveling [while not working together]. But we always knew that we had to be very precise with this film. Michał and I did a film together about a fitness influencer, Sweat, and could go out and shoot anywhere we wanted because social media is very contemporary. In this film, it’s the exact opposite. We had to choose our frame really carefully because there’s a gas station just five centimeters to the left or some modern storefront. It also means what frame is going to be dressed by the [production designers] and we have to fill up with people. It’s a delicate balance of how to spend your budget that also creates a style which we try to make our own. We made it into a very well-staged story where we want to give the feeling that we have an element of creation in this world. We want the shots to feel very planned and decisive. We worked a lot with marks on the floor and carefully planned staging of how actors and actresses should move. We built a lot of interiors in a studio, so we had control over the blueprints of how we wanted them to look. We do such a big job of planning the shots that it becomes very difficult for us and it shakes the whole building if we start improvising. This was not a film based on improvising. This film was based on meticulous preparation. references and a very, very precise knowledge of what we wanted to do.
Filmmaker: The score by avant-garde musician and composer Frederikke Hoffmeier is amazing. At times it feels like we’re in an Aphex Twin music video or something. What was your collaboration like and what notes did you exchange on the film’s sonic texture?
von Horn: Vic Carmen Sonne knows Frederikke and said, “Oh, you should meet her,” because I didn’t know anyone in Denmark going into [production]. After I had Vic on board, she recommended a lot of interesting people, because she knows everyone in the industry in Copenhagen. Me and Frederikke really hit it off. I always wanted an electronic soundtrack; I didn’t want a soundtrack taken from [period] music. Frederikke comes from noise music, and I thought it was so interesting because she can do music that “breaks,” as I call it. There are so many horrible moments in the story when the human spirit breaks, so the music should also touch upon that. The modern element of the music, I believe, also makes the film much closer to now. It makes us look at it not just like, “Oh, that’s the way it was back then,” but we start looking for references to our contemporary world. Even most of the music used in the beginning is closer to a classical melody, then the further in we get to the film, the more modern it becomes. I really enjoyed working with her. I was never nervous about getting boring music.
Filmmaker: I want to know a little bit more how your lead actresses uniquely embody the characters that you wrote for them. How did they make these characters their own through the process?
von Horn: I was looking for someone in Denmark that would feel authentic as a factory worker living in poverty. Most of the actresses I met felt too healthy—which means good things about Denmark, but it wasn’t good for my casting. Vic has something visually, in the way she looks, which makes me believe that she can come from those times. But she also has an emotional range that makes me believe, “Oh, this can be like a different world.” She can be unpredictable that way. I cast her and didn’t plan for it to be two years before we started working on set. Whenever we had a new draft, [Vic and I] would speak. For me, writing is a way of beginning to direct a film. She reads the script, we speak about it and that’s the beginning of our rehearsal. It’s a really good way of understanding the story together.
Trine Dyrholm came on board much later. The first time I approached her, she said no to being part of the film because she didn’t feel the script was ready, which was a great motivation to go and keep on writing, because I couldn’t imagine the film with anyone else. When she finally accepted, we were quite ready. She’s so experienced and not just a great actress, but a great asset in the sense of a storyteller and a filmmaker [in her own right]. I just gave her three references, which I felt were the best direction for Dagmar in my mind: the possessed girl in The Exorcist, Fagin from Oliver Twist and Willem Dafoe in The Lighthouse. She said, “Okay, let’s do it.” She’s a very intelligent, clever and experienced person. She also knows that we need nuances—we’re not making a devil character, she needs to base it on a human being, and that’s the most difficult part of that character, I think.
Filmmaker: I’m intrigued by the film’s portrayal of gender and patriarchy. The men in the film are overwhelmingly “unmasculine.” Karoline’s husband, Peter, has been disfigured in the war and can no longer perform sexually; meanwhile Jorgen, her boss and lover, is emasculated by his domineering mother. What prompted this exploration of masculine “weakness” contrasted by the resilience, strength and violence portrayed by the women characters?
von Horn: I mean, this world is hell for women. Women need to fight 10 times more than their male counterparts and a hundred times more than their rich male counterparts. That makes them interesting main characters. It’s also based on a story about unwanted children and women who don’t have an option or a freedom of choice other than to give their kids away and believe this kind of naive story that they’re going to get great foster parents. It says so much about what world these women lived in. I always felt like the interesting thing about it is that they have to be fighters. If you look at Jörgen, when Caroline is pregnant and they meet at his mother’s place, he meets to end the relationship. It takes him 10 minutes to do that, and it takes Caroline so much longer to deal with the same situation. Just looking at it like that says a lot about what gender and class means to that society. It even becomes worse, in a way, when the men don’t even have to be strong, secure, confident people. I always think that’s gonna be more interesting, because the world is already set against them. So little is needed for them. They don’t need to be stronger. I think with Peter, her husband, it’s also different because he enters the story when he has been through war, is traumatized and has changed as a human being on the inside and on the outside. Caroline can’t be with him because she has not yet been through her war, which is what’s happening on the home front. Only at the end is she leveling with him, which opens up the possibility of a relationship for them again.
Filmmaker: Something else I appreciated is this idea that many women do not possess an inherent maternal instinct, or simply don’t want to be “trapped” by motherhood and domesticity. The film does not cast moral judgment on the women who give up their children to Dagmar, even if there is a naivete, however willful, at play.
von Horn: I think it’s the same today as back then. I don’t cast judgment on someone who wants to have an abortion. I don’t believe anyone has an easy time having an abortion. I know that from personal experience with me and my wife. We can’t be judgmental about that because it’s never an easy thing and never something someone wants to do for no serious reason. It wasn’t easy for the women who went to Dagmar, rich or poor. I believe they had good reasons, so there’s no way you can cast a judgment.
Filmmaker: In the wake of women’s reproductive rights being rolled back in the U.S., how do you hope that your film reinforces notions about motherhood, choice and desperation for audiences here?
von Horn: Not only in the U.S. Audiences have been wanting to speak about just that in connection to the film. The first discussion has always been the modern connection to today’s society. In the U.S., I know it has urgency. In Poland, where I live, it has the same urgency. The reproductive rights of women, freedom of choice, was taken away in 2020—four years ago, during the development of this film. One government made that change; the government has since changed again to a more liberal one, but still that law has not been reversed. In other countries it resonates differently. In Sweden, where I come from, women in the ‘70s went to Poland to have abortions legally, because it was illegal in Sweden at the time. Now it’s the opposite. In France, freedom of choice has been introduced to the constitution so that they don’t have to have that fucking discussion again, which I’m very happy and hopeful about. I think that’s also the reason why we make films. Whether it’s a science fiction or historical film, we try to connect it to the world today. We set something in the future, in the past, to create a more multi-nuanced conversation about the society we live in. I think that’s the purpose of this film, as well. It’s not a historical biopic, it wants to connect to the world today. And unfortunately, in some places, similarities between this film and the world today are too similar for it to feel good.
Filmmaker: You worked on this film for four years. You’ve had a couple of features in the past. Is there anything that you’re working on or working toward now or anything that you kind of have your sights set on as a director and screenwriter in the future?
von Horn: I’m really wishing to make a romantic comedy of my own. I don’t know exactly how yet, but it’s something I want to do. With this film, I set out to make a horror film and this is what came out. I mean it in the same way about aiming for a romantic comedy and being very curious about what comes out.
