A heated discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
