An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
