An heated debate recently went viral on social media, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how foolish they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
