An intense discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
