Review | ‘The Promised Land,’ Hopeful Harvester

Denmark’s Oscar Bid, an 18th-Century Epic with a Heroic Figure and Face, at the Riviera

Mads Mikkelsen in ’The Promised Land’ | Photo: Courtesy

In the quiet yet volatile center of the powerful Danish film The Promised Land is Mads Mikkelsen’s face. Seen in countless close-ups throughout this epic taming-of-the-land saga is that ruddy and weathered visage, its tough and seemingly unbreakable surface echoing the nature of the soil he is desperately trying to till and make fruitful.

Mikkelsen nails the task of portraying the archetypal strong, silent type, hinting at inner and hard past lives through facial micro-gestures and even an occasional hint of a tear. Obstacles, of the human and agricultural sort, only make them stronger. He’s that kind of a guy.

Director Nikolaj Arcel does an impressive job with many aspects of this reality-based story, with Mikkelsen as its greatest selling point. We get an elaborate pictorial sense of the harsh frontier land of the once-unpopulated “heath” moorland region of the country, in sharp contrast to the aristocratic splendors and also sadism of the wannabe land baron Frederik De Schinkel (played with pernicious glee by Simon Bennebjerg). Folded into the story are the timeless themes of aristocratic and political corruption versus the hard work and willpower of proletariat dreamers, a story as relevant today as ever. A sidebar on the subject of systemic racism also rears its head, in the subplot of our hero taking a young Romani girl, dubbed a “darkling,” to be avoided by his fellow settlers.

Despite its many virtues and overall expressive power, the film loses some points through cliche and lack of subtlety. A soupy, epic-while-you-wait musical score and overkill in the villainy department rob the film of its potential artistic achievement.

By film’s end, though, we can look back in fondness on a story of blind ambition that yields to a “love will out” imperative. This is also a rare film when a shot of a tiny green sprig of a potato plant, deep into the tale, can bring a tear to even the most cynical eye.

The Promised Land opens February 2 at Santa Barbara’s Riviera Theatre. View the trailer here.