Centuries ago, the heathlands of Denmark were rough-hewn, expansive and notoriously unforgiving. In the new Danish film “The Promised Land,” those words could also describe the face of its star, Mads Mikkelsen. One of the great visages in movies, it has a landscape all its own.

Mikkelsen (“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”) commands the screen as Captain Ludvig Kahlen, an 18th century ex-military man obsessed with being the first farmer to tame the heath and gain recognition — perhaps even a noble title — from the king, for whom the development of the wasteland is a personal preoccupation.

In adapting Ida Jessen’s novel “The Captain and Ann Barbara,” director Nikolaj Arcel (“A Royal Affair”) and his co-writer, Anders Thomas Jensen (who directed Mikkelsen in the effective 2021 revenge thriller “Riders of Justice”), use classic themes present in American Westerns, in which a man of violence tries to become a peaceful farmer, but is opposed by a rich baron who wants the land for himself.

That man, Frederik De Schinkel (played with gloriously over-the-top, scene-chewing efficiency by Simon Bennebjerg), has a large estate adjacent to the beginning of the heath, and though he has no use for the land, claims it for himself. He encourages Ludvig to farm the land, but as his serf, essentially. No deal, says Ludvig.

In our mythology, the American West was a chance to reinvent oneself, with the premise that everyone has an equal shot at success. In Europe, in which nearly every country has a centuries-long history of monarchies, class is ever present. Equality — even the goal of achieving equality — was literally a foreign concept.

It is established early that Ludvig was born the son of a maid who worked for a baron very much like De Schinkel. It took him 25 years in the military to rise to captain, a rank achieved by those with noble blood in six months. His farming is a means to that coveted nobility — and a rise in status and respect. In a sense, he wants to be someone like De Schinkel, rather than transcend the system.

Ludvig’s life has been a lonely one. When De Schinkel’s baroness cousin Edel (Kristine Kujath Thorp), after speaking to him for about a minute and a half, observes, “You haven’t had many long conversations with women,” he responds, “This is the longest.”

But the trouble with being a hardened loner is that humanity can get in the way. A married couple (Amanda Collin, Morten Hee Andersen) escaping De Schinkel hide out on his farm. He unwittingly becomes the caregiver to a young child (Melina Hagberg), ousted from society because of her dark skin. People who cannot legally work because they are former convicts live in the woods nearby.

Even in isolation, Ludvig is forced to come to grips with the inequities of his society. Played by Mikkelsen as Clint Eastwood without the squint, Ludvig begins to wonder whether the means of achieving respect comes at the cost of losing his self-respect.

Reach G. Allen Johnson: ajohnson@sfchronicle.com