An intense debate lately went viral on social media, after a user asked a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent 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. At its best, the series evokes memories 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 religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
