A heated debate recently spread widely on social media, following a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
