An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which some males came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
