If you haven’t heard of The Girl With The Needle yet then it might be possible you have been either hiding under a rock or need to spend more time on Nordic Watchlist. The Magnus von Horn-directed Danish film has picked up many nominations in various awards including the Golden Globes and BAFTAs, as well as featuring on the Acadamy Awards long list.
Even the likes of Nosferatu director Robert Eggers has sung the film’s praises and it seems to be picking up a lot of love from across the industry, and the world. It is a shame that both the film’s stars, Vic Carmen Sonne and Trine Dyrholm, have missed out on any nominations for their performances, but that only highlights how incredibly tough those categories are.
Nordic Watchlist: Let’s start by talking about Vic Carmen Sonne. We think she is a phenomenal talent and her performance in this is incredible. We learned from her how much she is inspired and enthused by directors which is where she gets her energy from – what was it like working with her and bringing her character Karoline to life?
Magnus von Horn: So, Vic was connected to the story around two years before we started shooting, so we had conversations over that time and stayed connected while Line and I were writing new drafts, and Vic was reading them.
I saw it as rehearsals starting early, in the sense she was very much part of watching and observing how the story was developing, allowing her to comment and be a part of that.
For me, it is always important to connect people in the sense that they become collaborators.
Magnus von Horn: She looks to me, even without make-up and costume, that it felt credible that she works as a poor factory worker. She had this beauty that made this image credible in the way that we wanted, and other actors that had auditioned for the role from Denmark and Sweden didn’t have.
With Vic, she has this quality inside and outside – this emotional range, her mimics, and unpredictability are part of that world that makes her interesting.
Nordic Watchlist: The image of her staring forward fits that description and has become quite an iconic image, in our opinion. What about Trine Dyrholm, she is a Danish darling when it comes to Nordic cinema; was it hard to sell this role to her? It is perhaps one of her darkest roles to date.
What challenges did you face in portraying Trine’s character Dagmar’s humanity alongside her atrocities?
Magnus von Horn: Yeah completely, that was most important to her, how to defend her character without making a sentimental portrait of a serial killer – which would be morally questionable but also without demonising her into a non-human.
To walk that line was what Trine was so interested in – it was difficult and complicated, but that is when it becomes most rewarding to an audience to watch because there is no easy explanation to her and that is probably the truth about humans, I believe.
She was eager to be part of this project she just wasn’t ready to commit until she felt her character was well-written. From the first meeting we had, it was not a case of me having to convince her because she was scared of the role, I had to prove to her that we would make a good enough script for her to feel it was worth taking this leap into her character.
Nordic Watchlist: Along with Vic and Trine there is an incredible supporting cast and in particular we would like to point out Besir Zeciri as Peter. It is an extraordinary performance from him and I can imagine quite a difficult one.
Magnus von Horn: I am so happy you have mentioned Besir’s performance, he will love hearing that because he put so much into this part.
I remember the castings we did, and I wanted—for me, it was the most important thing—that when he returns home, he is this enigma with a mask. Rather than having this guy who Karolina becomes scared of because he’s screaming and cruel or demanding from the get-go, he should be this very humble guy who has lost any kind of pride. He returns as a humiliated, broken person, and when she tells him to just leave, he says yes and he goes.
The main thing I was looking for was that he’s a very kind person and not intimidating. I liked him in Wildland because he has this naivety or childishness about him. His quietness, kindness and softness combined with the mask, becomes scary in a way. That was important to me and he really captured that.
Nordic Watchlist: I love how organic it all sounds and how naturally it comes together, especially in terms of the soundtrack, which I believe was through Vic’s connection with Frederikke. You mentioned the electronic sound and beat—was that always something at the forefront of your mind when putting the film together and writing it? Because, of course, it could have easily gone down a more classical route. But with the electronic sound, was that there from the start for you?
I listen to only electronic music, so I already had a clear idea of the direction I wanted the music to go in. I also spoke to people about the kind of music I wanted, and Frederikke (Hoffmeier) is a friend of Vic. She recommended Frederikke, and we got along so well. I found it so interesting that her music—the music she makes personally—is so extreme to me. It’s noise music, and I thought it would be really interesting to pair that with this story and see what she would do with it.
It was a perfect match for what I was looking for. I didn’t want to just use her personal music as it was, but to have her confront the story and the edited version of the film. When she finally saw the images with this very specific music style she already had, I was curious about what she would create. We spoke a lot about it, and she has made such interesting music for the film.
I think now she’s just mastering the soundtrack to release it. I really hope she includes some of the unreleased songs or tunes, which are also amazing.
The Girl With The Needle is out in cinemas now through and distributed through MUBI and will arrive on the streamer from the 24th January
