We’ve had the tidal wave of Nordic noir, now brace yourself for an epic tale of a Scandi Western in THE PROMISED LAND.
Starring the marvellous Mads Mikkelsen, THE PROMISED LAND is a sweeping saga set at the end of the Seventeen Hundreds where veteran soldier, Captain Ludvig Kahlen, stakes his claim on the woe begotten heath in Denmark to grow potatoes.
The original Danish title of this film is Bastarden. It seems more accurate than its refurbished name, although the lacing of irony in its anglicised nomenclature is delicious. It’s a harsh, seemingly uninhabitable Danish heath, a blasted heath worthy of a Shakespearean tale, and Kahlen’s quest a seemingly impossible goal; to build a colony in the name of the King. In exchange, he’ll receive a desperately desired Royal name for himself.
But the sole ruler of the area, the merciless and soulless Frederik de Schinkel, capital P psycho and capital S sadist, perfectly played by puppy-faced Simon Bjenneberg, arrogantly believes this land belongs to him. When de Schinkel learns that the maid Ann Barbara and her serf husband have escaped for refuge with Kahlen, the privileged and spiteful ruler swears revenge, doing everything in his power to drive Kahlen away.
But Kahlen will not be intimidated and takes up the unequal battle, meeting privation with persistence, terrorism with tenacity, depravity with determination.
THE PROMISED LAND is a film about status and stoicism, the ignominious aspects of corrosive ancestral nobility, the noble aspects of human aspiration and endurance.
Widescreen cinematography by Rasmus Videbæk and production and costume design by Jette Lehman and Kicki Ilander respectively are rich, enlivening an already lively script by Nikolaj Arcel and Anders Thomas Jensen, based on the novel by The Captain and Ann Barbara by Ida Jessen.
Nikolaj Arcel directs with old school finesse, an epic canvas of frontier taming and standing up to bullying, class and racial discrimination and misogyny.
THE PROMISED LAND promises a big, sprawling epic and delivers in spades.
