A heated debate lately went viral on social media, following someone posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
