Historical epics have not gone out of style, but the prerogatives of big, crowd-pleasing stories set in the past have become less refined in the era of the MCU blockbuster, which makes this Danish movie all the more remarkable for how effectively it sells its old-fashioned dramatic ideas. Mads Mikkelsen is the primary salesman, with his preternaturally stoical visage, a seeming mask of imperturbability confronting the most scathing injustices and insults, carrying a movie that is essentially about how class can define a culture. Mikkelsen plays Ludvig Kahlen, a minor figure in Danish history who is here elevated to heroic proportions despite the man’s insufferable pride. Born a bastard to a nobleman and one of his servants in the 18th century, he grew up in poverty but achieved a level of distinction by joining the German army and rising to the rank of captain. However, upon retirement he receives only a meager pension and as the movie opens is living in a veterans poor house in Copenhagen. He decides to take up the king’s offer to help settle a blasted heath in Jutland and applies to the treasury, whose various bureaucrats mock his intentions, presuming that the moors are uninhabitable.

The premise is thus established: One stubborn man pits himself against not only impassive nature, but the layer of society that would keep him forever in his place. In addition to the bureaucrats he has to contend with a local magistrate, de Schinkle (Simon Bennebjerg), a sadistic monster who believes the moors belong to him regardless of the king’s edict. In fact, Kahlen’s first two hires, Johannes (Morten Hee Andersen) and his wife, Ann Barbara (Amanda Collin),  have escaped indentured servitude to de Schinkle, thus branding them fugitives. He also takes in an orphaned “black” child traveling with the dangerous “vagabonds” who roam the area. Kahlen is not kind to any of them because he sees life as harsh and his first obligation is to his mission to make this land arable and, thus, livable. As gravy, he will be given a title if he succeeds. Fortunately, he is introducing a crop that is still new to Europe—potatoes—which can grow under even the worst conditions. 

The Promised Land has been called a Western. Formally and spiritually it has more in common with the melodramas of Thomas Hardy, but with a blunter edge and much more violence. Once de Schinkle realizes that Kahlen isn’t going to move easily, he doubles down, indiscriminately slaughtering Kahlen’s growing workforce of vagabonds and German immigrants, thus forcing Kahlen to strike back with similarly brutal means. The director, Nikolaj Arcel, working from a script he co-wrote with Anders Thomas Jensen, revels in the unsubtlety, making his villains cartoonishly evil and Kahlen’s imperious nature unreadable at times—that is, until the other shoe drops and the man’s humanity breaks through in ways that are no less than stirring. If The Promised Land hearkens back to the great historical epics of directors like David Lean, it’s because it isn’t afraid to use gross spectacle and big fat emotions to get your heart pumping. 

In Danish, German, Swedish and Norwegian. Now playing in Tokyo at Cine Switch Ginza (03-3561-0707), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Yebisu Garden Cinema (0570-783-715).

The Promised Land home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2023 Zentropa Entertainments4, Zentropa Berlin GMBH and Zentropa Sweden AB