CANNES 2024 - remote notes

[Chris Knipp]

THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE (Magnus Van Horn)

In Competition. This "arthouse-exploitation picture with a truly hellish theme" (Bradshaw) is loosely based on the Danish serial killer Dagmar Overbye, who helped impoverished women kill their unwanted children. Xian Brooks cals this "an expressionistic black fairytale haunted by the ghosts of the first world war and stumbling across every manner of monster in the shadows." A B&W film set in Denmark in the 1920s. Bradshaw in his GUARDIAN review gives it 4/5 stars; he's impressed and writes "fictionalized true crime nightmare leaves you with a shiver of pure fear." The director is a Swede based in Poland. Guy Lodge in VARIETY describes this as "an adult fairytale abundantly populated with witches and wretches, but where society is revealed as the true monster." Sounds scary, disturbing, possibly infuriating. It's only #4 of 7 on the current jury grid. But Leslie Felperin's more detailed review for the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER draws one in and shows this is a well filmed and edited film that could be watchable and relevant because it's about the exploitation of pregnant women. But if it's as expressionistic and only loosely based on fact as reviews say, does it really make sense for Felperin to call it "almost too much reality to handle"?