An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
