'THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE' REVIEW: Look Into the Face of Pain [4.5/5]
A Nightmare Tale In Post-WWI Denmark
[Rating 4.5/5] - dir. Magnus von Horn - 2024 - Denmark / Poland / Sweden - R - 2h 2m - Historical Drama / Crime
Much of director Magnus von Horn’s The Girl with the Needle feels like something Robert Eggers’ brain might conjure up for a spectacularly dour nightmare.
It’s shot in an old fashioned ratio. It’s black and white. It’s a period psychological drama/thriller. It’s brutal. No, not in its depiction of war, but in its depiction of the consequences of war. We have seen, a thousand times over, men and to a far lesser extent women valourized for fighting directly in the World Wars (and fair enough). Rarely do we get to see, wrought to its truest, most poetic, artistic potential, an inter-war melodrama.
The Girl with the Needle begins with a warmth that blooms and then recedes rapidly, never to be seen again. It is a look at a life one could be forgiven for wanting to forget. It’s hard to create heroics against the stakes presented here. It is dire, certainly, and the people who make it through, day to day, in their poverty-stricken circumstances are heroic, but they are not painted as such.
Humans are savage. Von Horn shows us this again and again.
—
‘The Girl with the Needle’ is out now.
Selected Movie Quote: “Look straight at what the papers did not write about.”
[Rating 4.5/5] - dir. Magnus von Horn - 2024 - Denmark / Poland / Sweden - R - 2h 2m - Historical Drama / Crime