{"id":154562,"date":"2025-01-09T04:57:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T04:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/?guid=3dad9dba8cf74f68035ec290ebd4305e"},"modified":"2025-01-09T04:57:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T04:57:19","slug":"the-girl-with-the-needle-review-politically-pertinent-gothic-horror-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/09\/the-girl-with-the-needle-review-politically-pertinent-gothic-horror-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Girl With The Needle review \u2013 politically pertinent Gothic horror story"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I<\/span>t helps to have some vague stylistic or thematic justification for choosing to shoot your modern film in black and white. Magnus von Horn\u2019s The Girl with the Needle thankfully has both, in its gothic, crepuscular depiction of World War One-era Copenhagen, as well as its rogues gallery of tortured miscreants who live by an aggressively binary and personally-ascribed form of morality. This is a story in which colour, radiance and vibrancy have purposefully been sapped from the menu, lest the resolute bleakness of the lives it captures be diluted in any way.<\/p>\n

We meet Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), a ditsy but strongwilled seamstress, as she\u2019s being tossed out of her single-room apartment for unpaid rent. It transpires that her husband went off to war and, due to an understandable communications breakdown, is now thought to be dead. A request for a supplement on her meagre income leads to a backstreet affair with the boss of the mill, yet her hopes of a new, affluent future in his arms are swiftly dashed. Her husband then returns, sporting a terrifying mask to cover newly acquired facial disfigurements. Yet she is pregnant with the boss\u2019s child. At this point the film feels like a pointed Victoriana-gothic homage to David Lynch\u2019s The Elephant Man, but the moment that you think it, things jackknife in an entirely different direction.<\/p>\n

The above description covers maybe the first 30 minutes of plot, all of which is revealed to be necessary context for the film\u2019s more baroque and harrowing second act in which Karoline seeks the services of backstreet facilitator Dagmar (a subtly imposing Trine Dyrholm), who makes ends meet by rehousing babies for a healthy fee. Though there\u2019s certainly a tabloid intrigue to be found in its \u201cinspired by true events\u201d yarn, the real value of the film is to be found in its wider socio-political concern in questions surrounding female bodily autonomy and the responsibilities that are demanded from child-rearing. As such, there are nods to films such as Mike Leigh\u2019s Vera Drake and Audrey Diwan\u2019s Happening in how it presents a world in which a woman\u2019s only real choice was to suffer the consequences of a man\u2019s errant actions and a government\u2019s violent indifference. Which, unfortunately, is very much back in the headlines.<\/p>\n

Von Horn\u2019s writing and direction are measured to fit the material, while the subtle, unshowy elegance of Micha\u0142 Dymek\u2019s cinematography are never ramped up to the point that they usurp the nuances of the drama. Yet it\u2019s Sonne\u2019s remarkable, multifarious performance that really lifts this one above the pack. She uses her face with the expressiveness of a silent film actress, so when the big emotions eventually come they hit especially hard.<\/p>\n

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