NIKOLAJ ARCEL | DENMARK | 2023 | 127 MIN | DANISH 

The year is 1755, and lowborn military captain Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen) is determined to succeed where many others have failed, by establishing a self-sustaining agricultural colony in the notoriously inhospitable Jutland Heath. Despite having hardly any money and only two runaway serfs to assist him, Kahlen dreams of one day attaining the noble rank he’d been denied at birth. His efforts to establish the farm—faltering as they may be—draw the unwanted attention of local nobleman Frederik de Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg), a preening landowner who’s unused to anyone challenging his authority over the Heath. But Kahlen is single-minded, and as he makes ingenious, unexpected inroads, de Schinkel responds with increasingly sadistic forms of retribution. In a role he was born to play, Mikkelsen provides Kahlen with a glowering intensity tinged with madness. He has a worthy adversary in Bennebjerg, whose de Schinkel is one of the most impressively heinous movie villains in recent memory. Boasting stunning, painterly compositions and immersive production design, The Promised Land is a historical epic that’s as beautiful as it is brutal.

Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Amanda Collin, Simon Bennebjerg, Kristine Kujath Thorp

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