A intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears 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 are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
