Magnus von Horn never wanted to make a biopic of a serial killer: The Poland-based filmmaker finds that morally strange. But when he was approached to direct a film about Dagmar Overbye, a Danish woman who killed at least nine babies in the 1910s, he reconsidered, centering “The Girl With the Needle” on a desperate mother seeking adoption services rather 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 is often creatively energized by projects that scare him, and this movie really scared him. He wondered: “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 international feature Oscar, “The Girl With the Needle” begins with Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), a young woman struggling to get by in the waning days of World War I. With her husband missing after being sent to the front lines, she begins a clandestine affair with the owner of her factory, Jørgen (Joachim Fjelstrup). When she becomes pregnant, he agrees to marry her. It’s a true rags-to-riches story — until Jørgen’s stern mother threatens to cut him off financially. He relents, and Karoline’s dream is shattered. Alone and jobless, Karoline attempts to induce an abortion in a public women’s bathhouse with the titular needle. That is where she meets Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), who stops her, fundamentally changing not only Karoline’s life but 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 film “The Girl With the Needle.”
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
“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 real life, the fictional Dagmar runs a candy shop where women drop off their unwanted babies and receive assurances that a good home will be found for them. And, despite no evidence to back this up, Karoline believes that’s exactly what her new friend is doing. In her eyes, Dagmar is providing a service for women who have nowhere else to turn.
“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 help change laws in Denmark to ensure this scenario couldn’t happen again. A personal identification number was introduced so people could not just disappear without a trace after they were born. Von Horn notes that, before 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.”
This is dark subject matter and, framed in a certain way, could be quite bleak. Inspired by the Lumière brothers and films such as “The Elephant Man,” “Oliver Twist,” “The Exorcist” and even “The Lighthouse,” Von Horn gave the narrative a grounded but close-to-fairy-tale luster, shooting it in black-and-white. In his eyes, it was important to give viewers some distance from reality, so the audience isn’t overwhelmed by the proceedings. In some parts of America, for instance, restrictive abortion laws have been enacted, and lower-income women have been forced to, like Karoline, take matters into their own hands.
“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.”