An intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
