The Promised Land (2023)
I found the best angle to watch this was to take it as a western. Many American westerns deal with conflicts over lands, typically between farmers and cattle owners. The way things play out here are thematically similar, but the class structures with royalty, nobility and poor people stuck in indentured servitude positions makes for a different dynamic than the classic westerns. The story plays out nicely and while the impression you get of Kahlen in the beginning isn’t exactly sympathetic, as he is incredibly stubborn, the sympathy grows not just for him but for everyone around them and their absolute horrific societal positions with the huge gaps in privilege between farmers and the nobility. In those ways, it is quite similar to Pelle the Conqueror, to an extent that it must have been an inspiration. A certain scene towards the end is almost a 1:1 of a climatic plot point.
Being Danish I often have issues with how dialogues are handled in Danish movies, as I am probably more sensitive in how natural they sound compared to other languages. This was especially jarring here, where everyone talks in a very stilted and formal manner. Which does make a certain sense given the time period, and I know all the great actors have been instructed to to deliver their lines like this, so it is not bad acting, but it still threw me a bit out of it. I think other period pieces have handled that style better. Nikolaj Arcel’s own A Royal Affair from 2012.
That aside, which is likely not going be a problem for non-Danish speakers, the story is actually pretty well told and has strong character arcs. Like with Pelle the Conqueror it shows the hardships of class differences and poverty for its time with emotional and personal depth. What I was less impressed with was the cinematography. It often has that cheap TV production look, especially with how the nature shots seemed to have some computer manipulated backgrounds that removes the sense that we are in the Jutland moorland. While the ending works fine as it is, it also wants to wrap all loose ends in the last 10 minutes that I felt wasn’t really needed. Especially if there isn’t given enough time to wrap every character arc up with a neat resolution, doing it in a rushed manner has the opposite effect.
Rating: 3.5