Luis Martinez
Updated Thursday, February 1, 2024-07:45
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In the tradition of European period cinema,
the bastard occupies a privileged place.
It is up to him to be the nameless man who, oblivious to past privileges, builds his own future. Yours is the responsibility of embodying each of the achievements of the Enlightenment and, in short, of civilization itself. His declassed life serves no purpose other than what he himself is capable of building with his talent, his value and, why not, his luck. Fate is him against everyone in general and Commissioner Javert in particular. Barry Lyndon could be the role model with all his contradictions, his humor and his deceit. What American cinema proposes, however, is the 'western' as a privileged space for adventure and life beyond the border. Well, director
Nikolaj Arcel
takes the best of both to compose his particular and impeccable vision of the modern and, moreover, universal hero. 'The Promised Land' is a western, it is a Danish period drama and it is, above all,
Mads Mikkelsen.
'The Promised Land (The Bastard)'
is set at the end of the 18th century. The protagonist captain searches for his place in the world. He craves fortune and, above all, he desires a name, a real name. To do so, he faces an almost impossible challenge: colonize the barren wastelands of the north and do so to the greater glory of the crown. What he does not count on (or not as he should) is the brutal opposition of the nobleman on duty willing to defend his medieval privileges in the wildest of ways. What follows, in the most sunken of traditions, is a complete confrontation between the old world and the new, between the old world that is dying and the new one that is slow to appear, as the philosopher would say. And, indeed, in that chiaroscuro monsters emerge.
Arcel, who already gave us a vibrant and uneven '
A Real Affair'
, is aware that the 'western', in addition to inventing cinema itself, is a state of mind. The border not only delimits the territory of the known, but also
defines the space of desire.
Adventure, in any of its forms, takes place just on the other side of the limits and the mission of any art form is to risk that territory populated exclusively by dragons. '
Hic sunt dracones
'. And in the same way, he knows that well-made period cinema is not so much a representation of the past as a necessarily eternal and timeless metaphor of what we were, what we are and, most certainly, what we will be.
The director is clear about this and that is why he does not hesitate to dress a story that could well take place in Monument Valley as a period drama.
From the hand of an enormous Mikkelsen,
the story of a declassed person confronted with the nobility is told, as has already been said. That is, a man facing history. He is a soldier of the king, as well as the bastard son of a nobleman, who is determined to found a colony where no one has ever dared. And all this to achieve not so much the honor, the glory and the title that the stained blood denies him, but also his own place in the world that is beginning. That's at the beginning. Then it will be a matter of civilization, of humanity and of conquest of, in effect, the West, even if it is in the north.
The result is a film
as energetic as it is relentless.
So perfectly attentive to the tradition that it treads as well as open to the mix where the cultured quote fits equally well with the most feverish and violent B-series pleasure, the cinema from here and there. And in the middle, always, an actor with a wet look, worthy heir to the best John Wayne. And Jean Valjean.
—
Director
: Nikolaj Arcel.
Starring
: Mads Mikkelsen, Amanda Collin, Simon Bennebjerg, Kristine Kujath Thorp, Gustav Lindh.
Duration
: 127 minutes.
Nationality
: Denmark.