Pigen med nålen

Originally named "Dogmar the Killer", Danish serial killer Dogmar Overby killed 9 to 25 illegitimate babies entrusted to her care around 1918 under the guise of a childcare worker. In the film, she was adapted into a candy store owner who helped those who could not raise their own children during the Great Depression of World War I to kill their babies. The director was not interested in retelling a biopic about a serial killer. The film shifted the narrative perspective to a victim (participant) mother in the Dogmar case, a weaver girl, the owner of the needle in the title, but that was not her production tool.

The film transforms from a simple biographical film into a dark fairy tale about forgotten and abandoned people, depicting the Gothic appearance of Copenhagen at the end of World War I: widespread unemployment and scarcity, scarce job opportunities, people disfigured by the war who can only play monsters in the circus, abortion is regarded as a sin, pregnant women are expelled from factories, and many illegitimate children with no future try to find a ray of hope in the iron-clad ethical society.

The film uses the method of horror films to outline the plight of women who have no future, no backup, and no escape options. Because of this, Dogma, who has been tempered by life and is also broken, but still has humanity, is a fatal attraction to Zhinu. For her, it is easier to dance with the devil than to love her husband torn apart by war or a weak young master across classes. An expressionist nightmare that reveals the devastating truth hidden behind the veil of civilization.

The film is inspired by the real events of the Danish serial killer Dagmar Overbye, who murdered several babies in the name of helping to arrange adoptions between 1915 and 1920. The perspective of the film is quite good. The heroine is a participant of an era. The perspective of the story presented by the participants of the incident is relatively comprehensive, and it also shows the helplessness of the lower class in facing reality.

The war is the story behind the film. The war seems to have caused all this. This element is not strongly involved, but every time the husband appears, it reminds the audience of the background of the times. Although Denmark remained neutral after World War I, it still faced economic difficulties. The shortage of materials led to soaring prices and rising unemployment rates: especially for women. In addition, the large number of deaths or injuries of men in the war made many families lose their breadwinners, and women had to raise children alone. This also led to the lower-class women wanting their children to be better taken care of.

The film is presented in black and white, which well creates a gloomy atmosphere for the overall environment, but the use of gray feels poor and it is not used to highlight the emotions. The composition design is okay, but one can see a lot of shadows of other works in this work, whether it is color movement or content composition. The mirror in "The Servant" and the circus in "Freak" are particularly obvious, and the expressions are very similar.

The two scenes that impressed me the most and that I like the most are the use of three mirrors and the superimposition of the characters' faces similar to Bacon's paintings. Three mirrors appear in a large number of works expressing feminism, such as "The Tutor" written by Duras, the early silent film "Mrs. Buddy" by Durak, the photos of Maya Deren and "Ruan Lingyu" directed by Stanley Kwan. This kind of vision presents the same expression, the visual display of the inner contradictions and struggles in the face of difficulties and the exploration of multiple selves. I feel that these three mirrors are not only a kind of visual aesthetics, but also an exploration of female psychology and social identity. In my opinion, the changes in the texture of Bacon's photos are similar expressions, presenting the inner trauma and the pain and anxiety of survival.

In terms of hearing, the early part was just OK, and the cello and violin were okay in creating the atmosphere, but the modern feel of the plot presented by the combination of harsh sound effects in the later part was too strong, which directly pulled me out of the story.

I don't like it. The heroine's eyebrows kept jumping around, which was very distracting. The several jump cuts were very uncomfortable.

Dagmar Johanna Amari Overby (Danish pronunciation: [ˈtɑwmɑ ˈɒwɐˌpyˀ]; 23 April 1887 – 6 May 1929) was a Danish serial killer. Over a seven-year period between 1913 and 1920, she murdered between 9 and 25 children, including one of her own. On 3 March 1921, she was sentenced to death in one of the most famous trials in Danish history - a case that changed legislation regarding childcare. Her death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Overby was a professional childminder who was responsible for taking care of illegitimate babies, but murdered the babies entrusted to her care. She killed the babies by strangling, drowning or burning them in a brick stove. The bodies were either cremated, buried or hidden in the attic. Due to insufficient evidence in the other cases, Overby was ultimately convicted of nine murders. Her lawyer used her own abuse as an infant as a defence, but this did not impress the judge. She became one of three women sentenced to death in Denmark in the 20th century, but like the other two women her sentence was commuted. She died in prison on 6 May 1929 at the age of 42. Records related to her case are kept in the Police History Museum in Nørrebro, Copenhagen. Danish author Karen Sundgaard Koerstedt wrote a novel based on her story called The Man Who Made Angels. Copenhagen's Black Horse Theatre staged a play called The Story of a Murderer/Mother (Morder means murderer and moder means mother in Danish), which was adapted from her life. Overby is a character in the 2024 film The Girl with the Needle, played by Trine Dyholm. In the film, she is a candy store owner who secretly claims to help babies get adopted for a fee, but actually kills them after the family entrusts them to her. The film premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. The prototype of the heroine is a combination of the experiences of the informant Caroline and Overby. In a sense, the prototypes of the two heroines are the same person. Dogmar means daytime or glory in Danish, not dogma in English.

It beautifies the real events. It justifies all the evil deeds. This justification is not audible, but is covered with the illusion of objective neutrality of the camera. If you are interested in the truth about Dagmar, the Danish infanticide, you can find the real text to read. Before I knew the real events, I basically approved of this film, but after reading the reality, this pseudo-objectivity under all the evils makes people feel unreal.

Putting aside the original work, the tone of the film itself is right. From the distortion and superposition of human faces at the beginning, you can feel the shadow of German expressionism in the early 20th century. I think the black and white film is to show the poverty and chaos in Copenhagen after World War I, but the problem is that I didn't feel the difference in the environment. The too artistic treatment blurred the real suffering. From the middle part, the cult horror style slowly emerged, and I roughly understood the trend of the story. The problem is that it is unbalanced. The first part is about the heroine's experience. From entering the candy store, the balance and the focus of the play are inclined to Dagmar. Her acting skills and dramatic behavior are too eye-catching, and the director's creative intentions are also laid out. The whole film is a bit top-heavy. The scene of the heroine and the capitalist falling in love in the front is not in the same tone as the dark and complex infanticide in the back.

The film focuses on the poverty brought by the system, the freak spectacle brought by poverty, infanticide, drug abuse, and the psychological behavior of serial killers, but the last one is not given enough attention. When I watched the infanticide incident, I couldn't help but think of those provinces in my country with serious gender imbalances and the fate of those babies who were buried and sacrificed. I can only say that the reality is even darker and uglier. Copenhagen in the East and the northern hemisphere is even worse.

The soundtrack is great, and the cello creates a first-rate thriller. The choice of frame and the setting of light and shadow are all done carefully, and it is a well-formed academy production. Denmark's top actress Trina Tihon has strong acting skills and a complete image and spirit. Since her facial features resemble my mother-in-law, it is really impossible to ignore such a face on the big screen.

What is German Expressionism? Watch "The Cabin of Dr. Calgary" and you will understand what German Expressionism is without looking up any information. Exaggerated performances, weird light and shadow, distorted architectural settings, and trembling soundtracks, all of which constitute the appearance elements of expressionism. "The Girl with the Needle" simply reproduces these elements, but it is 2024, and actors cannot use the exaggerated performances of stage plays more than 100 years ago to perform a movie. The narrative risk of the film is very high. The director risked the moral accusation of thousands of people to adapt a heinous "Dogma Infanticide Case"-this is a challenge to justice, conscience and social morality. But at the end, under the accusation of the candy store owner, I almost agreed with her point of view, didn't I? Those who took the baby there were abandoned because they couldn't raise it? There is no essential difference between this and killing the baby. She just helped those mothers to make a break. Now I understand the meaning of the needle in the heroine's hand. Who is the murderer? In fact, when you make the decision to abort, you have already unconsciously decided to be a murderer. It is no wonder that the difference between life is: one needs to drink milk and cry, and the other is fed by the umbilical cord and sleeps soundly under the bulging belly. Even in today's society, the world has not become better. Wars are burning in some corners, the haze of hunger still shrouds the barren land, disasters are raging in homes, and sins are breeding all the time. In this scene, whether to let the baby come to this world full of suffering, should we think about it... Although the director failed to reproduce the expressionist performance, the softening, superposition, and dissolution of the two deformed, distorted, and dislocated faces are more expressionist-that face, those faces, that ugly and incomplete face, the terrifying faces of those who abandoned their children, which one is your own? I have to say that the actors acted so well, and the viewing experience is that I completely ignored that this is a movie in 2024, forgot that the girl with the needle is an actor, and forgot that Denmark is the country with the best welfare in the world. While other horror movie fans in the world are waiting for more visual horror elements to be scary enough, this movie has already begun to let you experience the shocking horror of the dark side of human nature - those mothers who insist on being morally noble and kind-hearted are actually murderers. Is there anything more chilling than this? Denmark, a Danish movie, and a full-frame 4:3 ratio. The last one was "Son" . Both have the potential to win awards. Especially this "Girl with the Needle" , I even think it will sweep the art, soundtrack, script, best actress and other awards.