A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after a user posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where some males came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
