An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user asked a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to inform females how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. 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 presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
