An intense discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, after a user posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
