Mads Mikkelsen’s epic is a thing of beauty

Henrik Ohsten/Magnolia Photos

Don’t fuck with Mads Mikkelsen.

There are a number of conclusions that can be drawn from The promised land, the excellent prestige film, dramatic and bloody, straight from Denmark. The rich in 18th century Scandinavia were as authoritarian, immoral and sociopathic as they are everywhere in the 21st century. Just because you fought for a country doesn’t mean you will be treated fairly. Few things fill a big screen better than a grand historical epic filled with sweeping vistas, action-packed settings, and heroic men and women fighting for love, the land, and a better tomorrow. Revenge is a dish that is best served cold, but it tastes even better when accompanied by potatoes.

But the main one is simply that, if you compare the film’s star to almost anything (an indifferent aristocracy, an unyielding terrain, a vest-wearing sadist, Mother Nature), you’d better bet on Mikkelsen. And God help you if you get on his bad side. The 58-year-old Danish actor has played cold-hearted billionaires and evil sorcerers, skinheads and Vikings, Nazis and cannibal serial killers. His bad boy bona fides are impeccable. However, the everyman we’re introduced to in director Nikolaj Arcel’s story about a stoic farmer trying to turn acres of rocky land into a farm might be tougher than most of them. He is a person who on the outside seems nothing special, just another worker who breaks his back in harsh conditions to make his fortune. However, in Mikkelsen’s calloused hands, he becomes a beacon of determination and righteousness. We’ve seen it before turn dubious and unethical characters into irresistible forces. Here, he shows us what happens when you crash directly into an immovable object with a chip on your shoulder. Resistance is useless.

“Health cannot be domesticated.” This is what an initial disclaimer tells us, setting the stage before we even meet the granite-faced gentleman who will prove him wrong. During the 18th century, the country’s royalty had been trying to attract settlers to a rural area plagued by arid soils, brutal climate, and bandits. Nobody could hack it. A former army officer named Ludvig Kahlen (Mikkelsen) travels to the king’s palace to make a claim. The assembled magistrates laugh at him: Why should they finance the madness of a miserable soldier? Kahlen claims his meager pension is enough to keep things going. He is also convinced that he can succeed where hundreds have failed. All he asks is to be granted a noble title once everything is favorable for the occupants. They grant him a deed out of spite. Good luck, fool.

Arriving at the wasteland and discovering that its reputation for inhospitality is well deserved, Kahlen nevertheless works the land. He has no money and there are practically no prospects on the horizon. Still, this tenacious hobby farmer knows that if he can keep several bushels of the hardy non-native crop known as “potatoes” from succumbing to frost, he will be ready to go. Thanks to a local priest (Gustav Lindh), he manages to recruit two immigrants, Johannes (Morten Hee Andersen) and Ann Barbara (Raised by wolves‘Amanda Collin). Both are former tenant farmers turned fugitives; Kahlen can at least offer them shelter if they help him. He also meets a Tater girl named Anmai Mus (Melina Hagberg), who is part of a gang of travelers and thieves. Soon, she and her fellow rogues also enlist in Kahlen’s cause. Seasonal setbacks, infertile lands, lack of reliable labor, and local prejudices (many refuse to work alongside the “dark-skinned” Anmai due to superstitious beliefs) are simply obstacles that must be overcome through sheer force of will. .

There’s a problem, though: Kahlen can’t just work his way over, under, and in. Frederik de Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg) is the lord of Hall Manor. He serves as county judge and supervises numerous sharecroppers on and around his property, including that runaway couple now working for Kahlen. This toxic prick of noble blood is also a rapist and murderer. He has long wanted to claim the wasteland as his own to consolidate his regional power, but what is this he hears? Does any former military officer think he can turn the “world’s asshole” into a deal? Without involving him at all?! Schinkel initially attempts a seduction offensive, inviting Kahlen to dinner and attempting to disillusion him about his prospects: “Why castrate a wild beast that wants to be free?” When that doesn’t work, he tries extortion and mild intimidation. Kahlen doesn’t give in. Good, thinks Schinkel. Anyway, he’d rather do this the hard way.

From here, The promised land becomes a battle that is not just man against nature (it is as much a survival thriller as a period piece), but a working class hero against the one percent, for whom cruelty is largely point. Arcel has long done well with his star, as he cast him in the lavish 2012 period drama. a real matter and co-conceived Mikkelsen’s 2019 thriller Vengeance is Mine. Horsemen of justice (2020). However, the role of Kahlen feels more like a gift to the actor, allowing him to play someone who is a cross between a retro matinee idol and a father figure (after tragedy strikes Kahlen, Ann Barbara and Anmai Mus join forces). become the equivalent of a family unit). and a stone-faced killing machine. You see how this worn figure brightens little by little, even if a smile is not glimpsed until halfway. And you also remember that he was a decorated military man who acquired a particular set of skills over a long career. You know, the kind that makes it a nightmare for people like Schinkel and any mercenaries he might use to intimidate the settlers…

It helps that Bennebjerg is also a gleefully malicious villain, and that Mikkelsen has not one but two romantic interests, courtesy of Collin and Kristine’s aristocratic ally Kujath Thorp. what really sells The promised land, However, it is its scope. Arcel and his film team rely on the natural landscapes, both impressive and overwhelming, and their rich and stale over-designed properties; is the kind of Once Upon a Time epic that draws inspiration from David Lean’s adventures in the ’60s and those great films from the ’90s, like Brave heart. (Minus, er, the more problematic aspects of Mel Gibson’s Scottish history lesson.) It’s as much a showcase for a bygone sensation of widescreen showmanship as it is for the star of it.

However, this isn’t strictly a nostalgia trip for TCM viewers either. Arcel and Mikkelsen have created the Danish equivalent of a touring show that feels rooted in its own country and culture, while tapping into a universal sense of large-canvas storytelling. The promised land It is, at the very least, a nod to the past of his nation and cinema. The feudal war over the unclaimed territory of Jutland may be strictly Danish, but the excitement, romance and stunning visual spectacle of this melodrama are classic Hollywood.