An intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
