Sons and The Girl with the Needle: Motherhood and Patriarchy Between Repressive and Permissive Institutions

In the essay, I discuss two Danish films that appeared simultaneously in Slovenian cinemas at the beginning of 2025, Sons (2024) and The Girl with the Needle (2024). Both films specifically address the role of motherhood in modern patriarchy. I do not understand this in a cultural sense but rather from a materialist perspective. I analyze the role of the mother through the modern division between the nuclear family and the state, separated by a chasm, which used to be inhabited by the extended family. Mothers often find themselves faced with an impossible choice between their child and their own safety or survival. This phenomenon is evident both in the first half of the twentieth century with authoritarian disciplinary institutions and in the twenty-first century with permissive ones. Despite changes in the nature of these institutions, they exert the same pressure on motherhood, which is further exacerbated by moralizing in the absence of structural solutions. In the case of Sons the focus is on the relationship between a mother and her antisocial son, while, in The Girl with the Needle, the subject is abortion.

The integral version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!