Mads Mikkelsen headlines The Promised Land (now streaming on Hulu), a historical drama from his native Denmark about a man with some really big potatoes. That’s a metaphor – you figure it out – and a literalism, as it’s inspired by the story of real-life soldier-turned-farmer Ludvig von Kahlen, who tackled the endeavor of an obsessive wacko by trying to turn an especially barren portion of Danish land into a lucrative potato farm. The film is director Nikolaj Arcel’s follow-up to his only Hollywood film, 2017’s doomed Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower, and marks his return to form after the Oscar-nominated A Royal Affair. But the impression The Promised Land leaves is that Mikkelsen is as captivating an actor as ever.
The Gist: “The heath cannot be tamed.” So go the words of harrumphing Danish officials who’ve sent men to cultivate the same heather-choked expanse of land and watched them fail over and over. But those men didn’t have potatoes, and Ludvig Kahlen (Mikkelsen) has crates full of them. It’s 1755. Ludvig He worked his way up from being a servant-class bastard son to becoming a captain in the army after 25 years in service – notably, something that would’ve happened a hell of a lot quicker had he been born in a higher social caste. He gets permission from the Royal Treasury to occupy and farm the heath, under the condition that he pays for everything himself. He agrees. He has naught but a few nickels from his military pension, but off he goes anyway, with a little help from the local vicar, Eklund (Gustav Lindh), and two workers who escaped indentured servitude, Ann Barbara (Amanda Collin) and her husband Johannes (Morten Hee Andersen).
Two things to note here: One, Ludvig is a stoic man of few words who treats Ann Barbara and Johannes somewhat poorly, offering them only lodging and food to work the heath, and not much in the way of compassion; their situation as law-breaking escapees puts them in no position to negotiate a better deal. And two, the couple escaped from the born-of-privilege overmoneyed cretin who owns scads of land nearby, Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg), and wants to own everything he sees, including the maidenhood of all his female servants. He also wants the heath. Why? Because it’s there, it seems. I’m not sure. But this is a guy dictated by greed greed greed, and for whom too much is never enough. He invites Ludvig over for dinner and for a good old-fashioned threatening: Get out or else. Ludvig stands his ground, because he has law and authority on his side – and then, for good measure, he almost steals Ludvig’s almost-but-not-quite fiancee Edel (Kristine Kujath Thorp), who raises an aroused eyebrow at this tall, weathered, principled man. Why doesn’t she want to marry Schinkel? Well, we hear he’s quite the rapist, and therefore a greasy turd slithering to the bottom of the toilet bowl of life. It’s all the personality that obscene amounts of inherited wealth and entitlement can buy.
The other question is why Ludvig desires to develop the heath in the first place. It sure seems like a miserable toil, and it’s almost comical how many shots we get of Ludvig pounding a sickle into the dry earth and sniffing handfuls of dirt. Like I said, miserable. But potatoes will grow in even the harshest conditions, and if he turns the heath into a bounty, he’ll earn a noble title and enjoy the higher-class status that’ll allow him to marry Edel. Yet as the wise man said, if only it were so simple: Schinkel may carry the title of judge, but he doesn’t give a rip about the law, and will force Ludvig off the heath even if he has to start killing people to do it, e.g., Johannes, who Schinkel tortures to death by pouring boiling water on him. But Ludvig isn’t above killing someone too – he was a career soldier, after all – if necessary to protect him and his own.
Ludvig keeps on dutifully cultivating, illegally hiring Romani “outlaws” to help. After a while, he almost has a makeshift family on his hands – he has a little sumpin-sumpin going with the grieving Ann Barbara, forming a loose love triangle with Edel, and they quasi-adopt Anmai Mus (Melina Hagburg), a Romani girl whose brown skin finds her labeled a bad luck charm by the many superstitious idiots around here. What with one circumstance and another, Ludvig finds himself in a pincer grip when he’s essentially forced to choose between what makes him happy – his obsessive pursuit of land, wealth and status, or the simple joys of being around people you love, and love you right back.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: At this point we should all be on board with Mikkelsen vehicles: The Promised Land, Another Round, Riders of Justice, et. al. This one thematically echoes Westerns from Once Upon a Time in the West to Australia to Killers of the Flower Moon and many points in between.
Performance Worth Watching: Mikkelsen’s subtlety here is sumptuous; he goes deep with few words, with the emphasis on his eyes, which have us continuously trying to read them by evaluating how narrow or wide they get.
Memorable Dialogue: Ludvig’s thesis statement: “When the settlers come, they will cultivate the entire heath, and then the King will visit us.”
Schinkel’s thesis statement: “Chaos, ludvig.”
Sex and Skin: You don’t see much in a relatively tasteful sex scene between people who live in dim lighting and wear raggedy clothes and that looks pretty sad at first but is more subtly joyful upon further rumination.
Our Take: A goodly portion of The Promised Land goes by before we’re fully convinced Ludvig has some legitimate human emotions behind that dispassionate exterior. There are hints of empathy in Mikkelsen’s performance, that Ludvig has seen and endured horror and hardship, and it shows on his weary face; he also shows the occasional glimmer of sociopathy, just like your favorite classic-Western heroes who killed men and went about their business pretty much as usual. But he’s a saint compared to megapissants like Schinkel, a flea on a cur’s ass who sneers and smirks and boasts (and apparently really loves whatever the 18th-century version of Jell-o is) and is essentially a cartoon character projectile-vomiting his nihilism all over his lavish manor. You’ll absolutely love to loathe this guy.
We’ve seen this type of story in American and Australian Westerns before, of slightly screw-loose folk seeking conquest of inhospitable natural environments, searching for purpose and identity. Ranches, railroads, potato farms – they’re all symbols of quote-unquote progress, a capitalist Manifest Destiny sanctioned by governments who believe their god-given right is to cultivate civilization in all directions. The irony being, of course, that so few of the people involved meet the definition of “civilized,” since they’re fine with being classist and racist and, to put it bluntly, murderers.
The brunt of The Promised Land’s compelling drama lies in Ludvig’s internal conflict as he questions his motivations, and we wonder if he’ll ever question the meaning of “nobility,” and realize that you can’t be a potato baron sanctioned by the King himself and be a decent human being. Mikkelsen leads a number of excellent performances lending thoughtful complications to his character arc, and the screenplay – by Arcel and Anders Thomas Jensen, adapting Ida Jenssen’s novel The Captain and Ann Barbara – not only keenly establishes the context, but also sets up a doozy of a confrontation with Schinkel that plays out in a potent and unexpected manner. There are times when the film goes large and political, and times when it stirs empathy for its characters. It’s a sweeping drama in that sense, and Arcel skillfully executes all facets of an epic historical saga.
Our Call: No new ground is broken, but the drama is nevertheless fertile in the absorbing, smart and consistently well-directed and -acted The Promised Land. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
