Danish Oscar Entry The Girl With The Needle drops dark and mysterious first trailer
The Cannes premiering film was directed by Magnus von Horn.
Photo: Lukasz Bak/MUBI
Now that’s how you do a trailer! Today’s first look at The Girl With The Needle, the official Danish entry for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards, gives absolutely nothing away but still manages to be bleak and weird and completely intriguing. The main character, Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne) might have killed her husband. But he might also be back wearing some type of waxy, humanoid mask. Or maybe it’s a completely different guy altogether. It looks like there’s something else going on with babies? It’s unclear, but either way, this writer is in.
It doesn’t help to clarify much, but the film’s official synopsis reads as follows: “Inspired by a true story and directed by Magnus von Horn (The Here After, Sweat), The Girl With The Needle follows Karoline, a young factory worker, as she is struggling to survive in post-WW1 Copenhagen. When she finds herself unemployed, abandoned and pregnant, she meets Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a charismatic woman running an underground adoption agency, helping mothers to find foster homes for their unwanted children. With nowhere else to turn, Karoline takes on the role of a wet-nurse. A strong connection is formed between the two women, but Karoline’s world shatters when she stumbles upon the shocking truth behind her work.”
The Dagmar in question is the real-life notorious Danish figure Dagmay Overbye. We won’t spoil why she’s so infamous here, but Google her if you’re in need of a new rabbit hole. Still, a Wikipedia page won’t capture everything that’s going on here. “In The Girl With the Needle we meet a poor woman living up in an attic, a prince on a white horse who turns out to be a coward, a monster without a face but with a heart of gold, and a witch in a candy store. A fairytale for grown-ups,” von Horn wrote in a director’s note. “This is the style we have chosen to use to tell a story that happened a long, long time ago but addresses a matter so close to us today: the unwanted, and what we ARE to do with them.”
The Girl With The Needle premieres December 6 in the US and Canada.