A heated discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to inform females how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode series 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 pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates 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 possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with 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, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
