The Promised Land is a true Mads Mikkelsen marvel — if you have a strong stomach

Much like its plot, the name of Mads Mikkelsen's new stubbornness-saga has had a journey of its own.

Originally lifted from the Danish novel The Captain and Ann Barbara by Ida Jessen, the story about an aging military captain's attempt to cultivate a barren region was given the working title King's Land — a direct reference to the story, and a title it still bears internationally.

Before long, that was changed to the more evocative, slightly mythic The Promised Land for North American audiences. Even so, you'll see a much simpler phrase in the opening credits.

Regardless of which language you watch it in, you'll be greeted by a single word, burned fully across the screen: Bastarden. Literal translation? The bastard.

Here that name is referring to the background of our main character, Capt. Ludvig Kahlen (Mikkelsen), English-speaking audiences won't have trouble tying that epithet to just about every grizzled, grimy face that appears on screen. 

That's because the characters The Promised Land (releasing theatrically Feb. 9 in Toronto and Vancouver, Feb. 16 in Montreal and Ottawa) have about as much softness as the setting. But as it zigzags between blistering sand, blowing snow and the odd few blood-spattered orphans, it grows into a kind of dour hopefulness that justifies weathering the cold.  

The plot is loosely adapted from history, though propped up by more liberties than even Ridley Scott's recent Napoleon. And like The Terror's ahistorical retelling of the unknown horrors experienced by the lost crews of the Franklin Expedition, Jessen's novel fills in a poorly documented period's few known facts with well-researched fiction. 

Here in the mid 1700s, Kahlen exiles himself to Denmark's remote heath — a lawless, uncultivated wilderness that decades' worth of dedicated men have failed to make suitable for farming. Denied a royal title due to the unfortunate circumstances of his birth (hence the bastard reference), Kahlen is broke after spending years in the military trying unsuccessfully to earn his birthright.

But as transforming the heath into a fertile settlement is one of the king's pet projects, Kahlen sees it as both his redemption and destiny — one he will make true by any means, and through sheer force of will. 

There's only one problem: The heath sucks. 

"There is nothing for shade, nothing for shelter. And the sky is cruel. It sends the heat that dries the depths of the soil. It sends frost in July. It makes it rain fish and worms which eat every green shoot, then burrow into the earth, later to emerge as red beetles which consume even the roots of the heather," reads Jessen's book.

"It makes it rain blood."

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, writer and director Nikolaj Arcel said he aimed more for loyalty to Jessen's text than he did historical accuracy, and it shows.  He uses a huge portion of the over two-hour runtime to build the Cormac McCarthy-esque bleak pessimism of Jessen's writing — at least at the outset.

In what starts out as a sort of parable for how power and class structures breed indifference, Kahlen is first disregarded and discounted by the aristocracy: They let him go to what they assume will be his death. They give him no support, no funds and refrain from even informing the King of what Kahlen is trying to do for his homeland.